X 

^ 


o<J 


THE  OLD 


RUPERT  -^.V. 


or 


The  Old  Nest 


"  Don't  love  your  children  too  much,  little  bird. 
They'll  fly  away." 


The  Old  Nest 


BY 


RUPERT  HUGHES 

AUTHOR  OF  "EXCUSE  ME," 
"  ZAL,  '  "  Miss  318,"  ETC. 


New  York 

The   Century   Co* 
1912 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Copyright,  1911,  by 
THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

Published  March,  1912 


TO 

YOUR 
MOTHER 


2228411 


CONTENTS 

PART  PAGE 

I     THE  LAST  FLEDGLING     ...  1 

II     BUSY  PEOPLE 75 

III     THE  LONELY  ONE  127 


PART  I 
THE  LAST  FLEDGLING 


THE  OLD  NEST 


'  T  T  'S  too  much  for  us,  Hannah.  I 
A  guess  you  '11  have  to  call  Uncle 
Ned." 

"Gimme  a  minute  to  git  my  breath." 
The  old  cook  and  her  older  mistress 
had  fought  with  the  dining-room  table 
in  a  futile  tug-of-war.  It  would  not 
come  apart.  They  braced  themselves, 
and  hung  back  in  antipodal  directions 
like  the  human  handles  of  a  Greek  jug; 
but  the  table  clung  grimly  to  its  own. 

They  sank  into  opposite  chairs,  gasping 
with  the  unusual  effort,  and  looked  help 
lessly  at  each  other  across  the  tenacious 
boards.     Mrs.  Anthon  panted,  "The  ta- 
3 


THE    OLD    NEST 

ble  holds  together  better  than  the  fam 
ily  does,  Hannah." 

"Yes,  ma'am.    It  does  so." 

Mrs.  Anthon  reached  forward  an  old 
ivory  hand,  and  ran  it  along  the  vener 
able  mahogany,  with  an  approving 
caress.  Since  any  group  of  objects 
that  coheres  seems  to  take  on  person 
ality  in  human  eyes,  this  table  had  come 
to  be  regarded  of  old  as  a  somebody,  an 
ancient  retainer  of  the  house.  It  had 
even  outlived  three  generations  of  the 
family  dog  that  crouched  at  its  edge  like 
an  immortal  Lazarus  pleading  for 
crumbs. 

When  Hannah  decided  that  she  had 
got  her  breath,  she  rose  from  her  chair, 
difficultly,  as  cooks  always  rise  from 
chairs,  and  went  to  the  porch  to  call  in 
Uncle  Ned. 

He  was  supposed  to  be  engaged  in 
the  usual  spring  yard-cleaning,  but  he 
4 


THE    OLD    NEST 

was  lazy  as  only  a  negro  knows  how  to 
be  lazy,  and  he  spent  most  of  his  time 
reflecting  upon  the  consequences  of  his 
last  gesture,  or  deliberating  over  the 
probable  effects  of  his  next.  He  raked 
a  pile  of  winter-sodden  leaves  as  care 
fully  as  if  they  were  flakes  of  gold  that 
must  not  be  broken  with  rough  handling ; 
he  swept  a  walk  more  solemnly  and 
minutely  than  a  monk  illuminating  one 
of  the  Epistles  of  Paul. 

Hannah  found  him  leaning  on  a  hoe, 
as  immobile  as  a  painted  peasant  on  a 
painted    field.     At    the    sound    of    her 
voice  he  suffered  a  positive  epilepsy  of 
energy,  and  she  must  name  him  thrice 
before  he  vouchsafed  a  hasty: 
"Cain't  you  see  Ah'm  busy!" 
The   same   habit  has   been  noted   in 
laborers    on    street-car    tracks.     They 
evade  toil  with  a  lotus-eater's  leisure- 
liness  till  a  car  comes  along,  when  they 
5 


THE    OLD    NEST 

assail  their  task  so  fanatically  that  the 
car  must  stop,  or  play  Juggernaut  over 
their  infatuated  frames. 

Uncle  Ned  relinquished  his  hoe  with  a 
sigh  of  regret,  and  reluctantly  at  length 
consented  to  follow  Hannah.  He  had 
one  rheumatismic  knee,  and  his  mode  of 
motion  gave  him  the  look  of  walking 
cautiously  around  his  own  feet. 

He  was  not  often  invited  into  the 
house,  and  seemed  unutterably  afraid  of 
injuring  the  walls  or  the  floor.  Once  in 
the  presence  of  his  mistress,  his  hat  slid 
from  his  head  and  he  made  many  a 
salaam,  wrinkling  up  his  face  and  grin 
ning  like  a  wheedling  hound. 

"Hyah  Ah  am,  Miss'  Anth'n,"  he 
said.  "Ah  had  to  leave  ma  hoe  in  de 
air,  but  hyah  Ah  am.  Yassum,  hyah 
Ah  am.  Ah'm  hyah — " 

Uncle  Ned  would  go  on  like  an  alarm 
6 


THE    OLD   NEST 

clock  till  he  was  cut  off.  Mrs.  Anthon 
spoke  softly  into  his  talk : 

"Hannah  and  I  have  been  trying  to 
pull  the  table  apart  so  that  we  can  take 
this  leaf  out.  But  it  's  too  much  for  us, 
Uncle  Ned.  Do  you  think  you  can  fix 
it?" 

"Well,  Ah  don'  like  to  brag  or  boas', 
but  Ah  reckon  Ah  kin  lick  dat  ole  table. 
Yassum,  Ah  reckon  Ah  kin  just  abote 
wrastle  dat  ole  table  to  a  stan 'still. 
Yassum,  Ah  should  n'  be  supprised 
ef— " 

"It  sticks  awfully  tight,  and  you  're 
not  as  strong  as  you  used  to  be." 

"No'm,  dat's  de  dismal  fack.  What 
wid  rheumatics  an'  ovawuk,  Ah'm  con 
siderable  disparaged,  but — "  he  drew 
himself  up  with  pride — "but  Ah  kin 
well  rememba  de  day  when  Ah  could  do 
a  lick  of  wuk  as  good  as  ever  Ah  could. '* 
1 


THE    OLD    NEST 

After  an  elaborate  debate  on  the  plan 
of  attack,  he  set  the  two  women  at  one 
end  of  the  table,  while  he  laid  hold  of  the 
other.  They  fought  the  table  up  and 
down  the  room  and  into  the  sideboard. 
It  clung  to  its  last  leaf  like  a  mother  re 
sisting  kidnappers;  but  at  length,  by 
wrenches  and  jerks,  it  was  overpow 
ered.  Its  arms  came  out  of  their 
sleeves,  squealing  protest,  and  the  leaf 
was  left  with  tenons  divorced  from  their 
mortises. 

Uncle  Ned's  face  was  like  glowing 
charcoal,  and  he  held  the  plank  aloft  in 
triumph. 

"You  see,  dey's  one  or  two  things  still 
a-goin'  dat  ole  Uncle  Ned  can  lick.  Yas- 
sum,  dey's  one  or  two, — mebbe  three— 

"It's  the  only  leaf  left  in  the  old 
table,"  Mrs.  Anthon  mourned.  "The 
others  went  into  it  one  by  one,  and  came 
8 


THE    OLD   NEST 

out  one  by  one.  And  now  the  last  of 
them  is  gone." 

There  was  such  a  dismay  of  loneli 
ness  in  her  tone  and  such  a  presage  of 
tears  in  her  voice  that  even  the  old 
darky's  slow  heart  was  touched.  He 
wiped  his  eye  with  the  back  of  his  wrist 
bone,  and  proffered  consolation. 

"Don'  you  worry,  Miss'  Anth'n. 
Dis  hyah  ole  leaf  ain't  gone  fo'  good. 
No,  ma'am.  It  '11  come  a-snoopin'  an' 
a-slippin'  back  in  place  ag'in  befo'  it 
knows  it  's  loose.  Ain't  Miss  Em'ly  tole 
me  herseff  dis  ve'y  mawnin'  whilst  Ah 
was  ca'yin'  her  trunk  down  to  de  ca'ige, 
dat  she  's  gwine  to  come  home  in  jus' 
a  little  less  'n  no  time  at  all?" 

Mrs.  Anthon  refused  to  hope.  Uncle 
Ned  persisted. 

"Ah  don'  see  what  fo'  you  take  dis 
ole  leaf  out,  anyhow.  Only  got  to  go  to 
9 


THE    OLD   NEST 

de  trouble  o'  slammin'  him  back  in 
ag'in.  Don't  seem  like  you  orter  'a' 
took  me  away  f 'm  ma  job  in  de  yahd  fo' 
any  such  nonsense." 

"The  table  is  plenty  large  enough  for 
the  doctor  and  me  without  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Anthon.  "It  makes  it  easier  for  us  to 
pass  things,  and  it  saves  Hannah  a  lot 
of  steps,  and — and— 

She  could  not  trust  herself  to  speak 
the  real  reason:  that  the  old-time  ex 
panse  of  table  was  an  unendurable  re 
minder  of  the  absent  children.  The 
empty  spaces  around  the  board  showed 
where  plates  had  stood,  plates  that  had 
clattered  much  and  come  often  back  to 
be  refilled.  She  could  never  endure  the 
mute  reminder  of  an  empty  chair 
against  the  wall.  As  the  children  had 
vanished  from  the  family  one  by  one, 
their  chairs  were  spirited  away  one  by 
one,  to  the  garret. 

10 


THE    OLD    NEST 

She  ordered  Ned  to  take  the  evicted 
leaf  down  to  the  cellar,  and  store  it  in 
the  rack  with  those  that  had  gone  be 
fore.  As  he  bent  his  shoulders  to  it,  he 
said: 

"What 's  dese  mahks  on  de  unda- 
neath  o'  dis  hyah  table?  Feels  like 
somebody  done  cyahve  somethin'.  Ah 
can't  mek  out  de  name.  Ma  eyes  is 
growin'  fibbler  ev'y  day.  When  Ah 
was  young,  though,  Ah  was  sharpa- 
sighted  dan  a  lynnix.  Ah  could  see  in 
de  dahk.  Ah  could  out-see  a  yowl." 

Mrs.  Anthon  hardly  needed  to  glance 
at  the  time-blurred  inscription.  Her 
eyes  were  feeble,  too,  but  her  memory 
was  keener  for  the  trifles  of  lang  syne 
than  for  recent  history. 

"It  must  be  Tom's  name.  I  remem 
ber  it  now  just  as  if  it  was  yesterday," 
she  said,  and  she  made  Ned  put  down 
the  board  while  she  fumbled  for  her  eye- 
11 


THE    OLD   NEST 

glasses.  "It  was  his  first  pocket-knife. 
He  had  always  wanted  one,  and  I  was  al 
ways  afraid,  and  his  father  was  afraid 
he  'd  cut  himself,  too.  But  one  day  he 
traded  two  of  his  school-books  for  a 
jack-knife,  and — I  was  out  calling  that 
day,  and  the  poor  child  was  left  alone 
in  the  house,  and  he  had  to  amuse  him 
self  some  way,  and  so  he  pushed  back 
the  tablecloth  and  cut  his  name  where 
his  plate  stood.  See,  there  it  is — if  I 
can  ever  find  my  glasses! — in  letters 
half  an  inch  deep.  I  can  feel  them  now. 
Hannah,  you  ought  to  remember  that." 

"Oh,  yes'm.  I  remember  it.  I  re 
member  it  perfect.  You  and  the  doctor 
come  home  an'  caught  him  before  he 
could  finish  it,  and  his  paw  whaled  the 
daylights  out  of  him. ' ' 

Mrs.  Anthon  winced  at  the  pain  and 
the  outcry  even  now. 

"He  had  no  right  to  whip  him,"  she 
12 


THE    OLD    NEST 

insisted.  "The  poor  child  didn't  mean 
any  harm.  He  thought  it  would  please 
everybody.  He  did  n  't  want  any  mis 
take  made  as  to  his  place  at  table.  But 
his  father  was  so  unreasonable.  We 
had  the  board  planed  off  as  much  as  we 
could,  and  it  was  all  right  when  it  was 
turned  over.  It  made  the  table  a  little 
uneven,  but — Oh,  here  they  are!" 

She  slipped  her  forehead  into  the 
shafts  of  her  spectacles,  and  smiled  as 
she  made  out  the  legend. 

tHOmAS  ANt 

It  was  smoothed  down  like  an  old 
epitaph,  and  about  all  that  could  be  seen 
was  that  the  S  and  the  N  were  faced  the 
wrong  way.  Thomas  also  had  been 
faced  the  wrong  way  by  his  father.  The 
mother  forgot  the  intensely  undignified 
and  unheroic  vision  of  the  yowling  lad 
taking  his  larruping — the  child  had 
13 


THE    OLD    NEST 

learned  early  in  life  that  a  yelp  in  time 
saves  nine  switches.  The  mother  re 
membered  rather  the  solemn  child,  goug 
ing  as  earnestly  as  if  he  were  an 
Egyptian  historian  carving  a  Pharaoh's 
cartouche  on  an  obelisk. 

Uncle  Ned  rubbed  his  thumb  across 
the  half-obliterated  scars  in  the  wood, 
and  chuckled. 

"Dat  suttainly  is  cyahved  good  and 
deep!  But  Mista  Tom  has  gone  an' 
cyahved  his  name  deepa  and  higha  yit 
in  dat  old  New  Yawk  City  town.  An' 
people  do  tell  me  it  takes  a  mighty 
smaht  man  to  make  a  deep  dint  in  New 
Yawk." 

"Yes,  he  's  doing  wonderfully  well 
there,  Uncle  Ned.  That 's  the  worst  of 
it,  all  the  children  are  doing  so  well  they 
have  no  time  to  come  home." 

"Dat's  de  trebble  of  havin'  such 
smaht  child 'n.  Ah  got  abote  fo'ty  of 
14 


THE    OLD    NEST 

ma  own,  and  dey  hang  on  ma  back  like 
Ah  was  a  possum." 

"You  're  lucky  to  have  them  near 
you,  Uncle  Ned." 

"Mebbe  so,  mebbe  so,  but  Ah  could 
stan'  a  few  of  'em  a  mite  fuddah  off. 
Seems  lak  all  yo'  child 'n  was  nach'ly 
talentous,  Miss'  Anth'n.  Miss  Kate, 
now,  she  useteh  sing  like  a  yangel,  set- 
tin'  out  on  top  of  a  rainbow.  Ah 
reckon  she  's  singin'  betta  yit  out  in 
New  Yawk." 

"She  doesn't  sing  any  more,"  sighed 
Mrs.  Anthon. 

"Well,  dat's  too  bad,  but  Ah  reckon 
she  sung  herseff  into  a  nice  husban'." 

"Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Ambler  is  a  nice  man," 
Mrs.  Anthon  admitted  with  the  caution 
mothers  use  in  praising  their  children's 
mates. 

Uncle  Ned  was  beginning  to  enjoy  the 
warmth  of  the  dining-room  and  the  lux- 
15 


THE    OLD    NEST 

ury  of  reminiscence.  Sometimes  he  had 
found  that  if  he  made  himself  very 
agreeable,  and,  at  just  the  right  moment, 
suffered  a  violent  attack  of  coughing 
and  a  rheumatic  contortion  or  two,  he 
could  successfully  hint  forth  what  he 
called  "one  live  coal  from  de  good  old 
bottle"  that  was  kept  upstairs — strictly 
for  medicinal  purposes. 

And  now  he  began  edging  in  that  di 
rection. 

"Yassum,  yo'  child 'n  is  suttainly  a 
credit  to  you,  Miss'  Anth'n.  Mista 
Frank,  now:  Ah  undastan'  he  's  a 
yahtist  of  de  ve'y  highest  pasuasium. 
When  he  was  abote  knee-high  to  a  duck, 
he  tole  me  he  was  goin'  to  be  a  house  and 
sign  painta." 

Mrs.  Anthon  was  glad  to  brag  about 

her  children  to  almost  anybody,  most  of 

all  to  those  who  had  known  them  in  their 

unformed   and   riotous   years.     So    she 

16 


THE    OLD    NEST 

told  Uncle  Ned,  "Oh,  he  isn't  painting 
signs  now.  He  lives  in  Paris  and  paiats 
for  the  Salons." 

"Well,  what  you  think  of  dat!  Lives 
in  Pa 'is  now!  You  know,  Ah  come 
from  Kentucky  myseff.  Yassum,  my 
fust  owna  lived  not  fur  from  Pa 'is. 
Seems  to  me  Ah  rememba  de  Salons, 
too.  Neah  as  Ah  can  recollec'  dey  was 
abote  de  bes'  people  dey  was  in  Pa 'is. 

"So  Mista  Frank  paints  for  'em. 
"Well,  what  you  think  of  dat  ?  And  on 'y 
dis  mawnin'  Ah  been  lookin'  at  de  fust 
paintin'  he  eveh  done.  Mista  Tom,  he 
cyahved  large  an'  deep,  but  Mista  Frank 
he  painted  wide  an'  high.  You  remem 
ba  he  made  up  his  min'  he  'd  paint  his 
name  acrost  de  front  de  house,  and  he 
clomb  up  yonda  by  de  rough  ends  of  dem 
bricks  like  he  was  a  fly,  an'  he  got  de 
fust  letta  finished  a  foot  or  mo'  high, 
when  he  was  interruptioned. " 


THE    OLD    NEST 

' '  Humph, ' '  sniffed  Hannah.  ' '  I  guess 
he  was!  The  poor  child  fell  about  a 
hunderd  feet  or  more,  and  lit  on  his  poor 
little  head.  And  wasn't  I  washin'  a 
winder  in  the  poller,  and  seen  him  go  by. 
And  I  run  out  the  house,  and  found  him 
layin'  there  whiter  than  flour,  and  I  let 
out  a  scream;  and  the  doctor  happened 
to  be  home;  and  he  come  runnin'  out; 
and  I  says,  'Oh,  Doctor,  the  poor  child  's 
killed.'  And  the  doctor  turned  whiter 
than  what  the  boy  was;  and  gethered 
Frankie  up  in  his  arms ;  and  run  into  his 
office  holdin'  him  tight;  and  tears  spat- 
term'  down  on  the  blessed  child's  face; 
and  he  laid  Frankie  down  on  his  table; 
and  ran  round  the  room  lookin'  for 
things;  grabbin'  the  wrong  bottles,  and 
asking  me  what  the  labels  was — he 
couldn't  read  'em  himself — you  know 
doctors  is  different  when  it  's  their  own. 
Well,  it  was  me  that  really  brought 
IS 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Frankie  round,  and  the  first  thing  he 
said  was — and  we  bent  down  to  hear 
what  it  was,  and  the  doctor  that  scared 
I  thought  he  'd  flop — and  the  first  thing 
that  Frankie  said,  was,  '  Papa,  I  'm  hurt 
so  bad  this  time,  I  think  I  ought  to  have 
a  dollar.' 

It  was  one  of  those  heirloom  anec 
dotes,  of  which  every  family  has  its  col 
lection, — like  Diggory's  story  of  "the 
grouse  in  the  gunnery  room."  The  An- 
thon  family  had  laughed  at  this  story 
this  twenty  year.  It  was  perennial, 
blooming  afresh  every  time  it  was  told, 
and  now  the  three  hearers  received  it 
as  if  it  were  this  spring's  own,  laughing 
themselves  out  upon  it  anew. 

Uncle  Ned  was  the  first  to  stop  laugh 
ing.  He  felt  at  once  that  this  hilarity 
was  a  poor  atmosphere  for  his  progress 
bottlewards.  He  brought  the  laughter 
to  a  short  stop  with  a  quiet  comment. 
19 


THE    OLD    NEST 

"Whilst  Ah  been  lookin'  at  dat  letta 
on  de  front  de  house  dis  mawnin'  Ah 
been  thinkin'  what  a  narrer  'scape  dat 
po'  boy  had  from  nach'ly  killin'  hisseff 
permanent." 

Mrs.  Anthon  felt  again  the  terror  of 
the  thought.  Hannah  saw  again  the 
pale,  limp  child  on  the  ground,  and  there 
was  no  more  mirth.  Women  have  a 
way  of  taking  their  tragedies  anyway; 
those  that  they  have  escaped  they  suffer 
just  the  same — as  if  grief  were  a  luxury 
they  would  not  be  cheated  out  of.  Now 
Uncle  Ned  found  the  two  women  as  ter 
rified  and  mournful  as  if  the  accident 
had  happened  yesterday  instead  of 
twenty  years  ago,  and  had  ended  in 
crape  instead  of  a  family  joke. 

Uncle  Ned  despaired  of  the  whole  sex, 
and  of  his  live  coal.  He  caught  up  the 
table-leaf  in  a  manner  full  of  impatient 
20 


THE    OLD   NEST 

impudence,  though  his  words  were  only 
a  gruff: 

"Whereat  70'  want  me  put  dis  leaf?" 

"Down  in  the  cellar  in  the  frame  with 
the  others.  It  stands  between  the  vine 
gar  barrel  and  the  cabinet  where  the 
preserved  strawberries  are,  and  you 
mustn't  hit  your  head  on  the  rafters." 

"Is  de  raftas  weak?"  he  grinned; 
then  he  shuffled  toward  the  door,  only  to 
turn  round  again.  It  took  him  four 
steps  to  turn  each  way,  and  by  that  time 
his  grin  was  spread  over  his  face  like 
molasses  on  a  hoe-cake. 

"You  listen  to  me,  and  mahk  my 
words  and  mahk  'em  good.  De  nex' 
time  you  sen'  me  down  in  dat  ole  cella, 
it  '11  be  fo'  to  bring  back  de  whole  case 
of  table-leafs." 

"Why  do  you  say  that!" 

"Dey's  somethin'  in  ma  bones  dat 
21 


THE    OLD   NEST 

tells  me  something  an'  ma  bones  ain't 
fooled  me  yit.  Ah  always  believes  ma 
bones.  And  ma  bones  tells  me,"  lie 
paused  dramatically,  and  smacked  his 
lips,  because  he  felt  that  now  at  last  he 
had  found  the  way  to  the  live  coal — "ma 
bones  tells  me  Miss  Em'ly  is  gone  on 
Yeast  fo'  to  bring  back  a  husban'  of  her 
own." 

If  Uncle  Ned  had  dreamed  that  this 
prophecy  would  be  received  with  joy, 
he  was  quickly  wakened.  Unbelief  and 
anger  and  horror  were  all  blended  in 
Mrs.  Anthon's  indignant  denial.  Han 
nah  reached  for  a  broom. 

* '  Get  on  out  of  here !  Trying  to  scare 
Miss'  Anthon  to  death!" 

Uncle  Ned  was  sincerely  sorry.  His 
jaw  hung  low,  as  he  blinked : 

"Don'  yo'  want  Miss  Em'ly  ma'ied?" 

"She  's  only  a  child,"  Mrs.  Anthon 
gasped. 

22 


THE    OLD   NEST 

"Well,  mebbe  so,  mebbe  so.  Ah 
reckon  Uncle  Ned  'd  betta  hurry  up  an* 
die.  He  don'  even  know  what  a  chile  is, 
no  mo'.  Ah  thought  Miss  Em'ly  was  a 
fine,  han'some,  high-steppin'  young  lady 
just  a-inchin'  and  a-inchin'  towa'ds  de 
altar,  and  now  Ah  up  and  fines  she  's  a 
baby  in  ahms." 

He  began  to  move  himself  round  again 
on  the  slow  turntable  of  his  feet,  and  his 
head  shook  as  he  muttered,  "Well, 
mebbe  so,  mebbe  so.  But  Ah  did  n' 
think  she  was  any  chile  de  way  she  's 
went  moonin'  roun'  sence  she  come  back 
home  de  las' time.  Good  mawnin'!" 

"Wait  a  minute.  What  do  you  mean 
by  saying  you  've  seen  Miss  Emily  moon 
ing  around?  What  do  you  mean  by 
'mooning,'  anyway?" 

"Moonin"?  Aw,  go  on,  Miss'  Anth'n, 
you  know  what  moonin'  is  as  well  as  any 
body.  Moonin'  is  what  you  call  when  a 
23 


THE    OLD    NEST 

young  lady  goes  roun'  and  stan's  roun' 
in  de  broad  daylight  like  she  thought  she 
was  in  de  full  moonlight." 

"Get  along  with  that  board,"  Mrs. 
Anthon  commanded  bruskly. 

"Yassum,  Ah'm  on  ma  way,"  he 
chuckled  and  wheezed.  "But  Ah '11  be 
back  soon,"  he  wheezed  and  chuckled. 
"Miss  Kate  got  ma'ied  in  dis  house,  and 
— well,  Ah  ain't  callin'  no  names  out 
loud,  but  dey's  one  mo'  plum  on  de 
tree,  an'  it  's  a-slippin'  loose — yah,  yah, 
whee-ee!  Dey's  goin'  to  be  one  mo' 
weddin'  not  fur  from  hyah,  and  Uncle 
Ned  '11  be  dressed  up  wit'  genuwine 
white  cotton  gloves  on  his  black  old 
han's  once  ag'in  fer  to  open  de  ca'ige 
do'." 

He  made  his  exit  with  a  whoop,  but 
the  table-leaf  caught  in  the  casement, 
and  seemed  reluctant  to  leave  its  domi 
cile  of  years  on  years.  When  the  old 
24 


THE    OLD   NEST 

man  had  finally  carried  it  away  to  exile, 
Mrs.  Anthon  nodded  to  Hannah.  The 
table  had  been  left  all  ajar. 

The  two  old  women  closed  it,  and  it 
came  together  across  the  empty  space 
with  a  snap !  The  table  was  at  its  min 
imum.  There  were  no  more  leaves  to 
fall  from  that  dead  tree. 

Mrs.  Anthon  sank  into  a  chair.  The 
old  negro  was  the  last  person  in  the 
world  to  look  to  for  a  romantic  proph 
ecy,  but  sorry  and  shabby  as  the  raven 
may  be,  his  croak  does  not  encourage 
cheer. 

The  mother-heart  suddenly  let  go  of 
its  belief  that  it  could  keep  this  girl  a 
girl ;  and  the  loss  brought  bleeding  with 
it.  Long  ago  she  had  hoped,  in  spite  of 
all  she  knew  of  babes,  that  her  own 
would  somehow,  by  miracle,  be  kept  at 
babyhood,  helpless  bundles  of  love,  pre 
cious  playthings.  She  had  seen  them 
25 


THE    OLD    NEST 

outgrow  the  haven  of  her  bosom,  the 
compass  of  her  embrace,  or  the  power  of 
her  arms  to  hold.  They  had  outgrown 
lullabies  and  rocking  to  sleep.  They 
had  come  to  wash  their  own  ears,  and 
the  backs  of  their  own  necks,  to  comb 
their  own  hair,  to  insist  on  bathing  by 
themselves  unaided,  and  to  put  on  their 
own  clothes.  They  had  outgrown  the 
empire  of  the  home  fence,  and  sought 
their  play  and  knowledge  outside  the 
yard.  They  had  outgrown  the  very 
town. 

And  now  the  last  of  them,  the  final 
babe  at  breast,  the  final  doll  to  clothe, 
the  final  infant  to  teach,  the  final  curly 
head  to  comb  and  soothe,  had  grown  and 
changed  and  escaped.  The  mother  was 
childless  now  indeed. 

It  seemed  only  a  night  or  two  ago  that 
Emily  was  a  little  drowsy  thing  that 
knelt  by  her  knees,  and  fell  asleep  in  the 
26 


THE    OLD   NEST 

middle  of  her  prayer — only  a  night  or 
two  ago.  And  to-day  the  very  servant 
was  saying  that  soon  she  would  be  kneel 
ing  under  the  overshadowing  palms  of 
a  preacher,  kneeling  at  the  elbow  of  a 
grown  man  and  a  stranger  who  would 
call  her  and  make  her  his  own,  and  take 
her  away  from  her  home  to  a  strange 
place  that  they  would  call  home,  a 
strange  place  where  yesterday's  babe 
would  be  to-morrow's  mother. 

Mrs.  Anthon  gripped  the  arms  of  her 
chair,  and  thought  so  hard,  felt  so 
fiercely,  that  she  did  not  hear  the  cough 
racking  Uncle  Ned  as  he  came  up  the 
cellar  stairs.  He  also  coughed  in  at  the 
dining-room  door.  He  had  to  cough 
again  and  again  before  she  turned  her 
dismal  eyes  his  way. 

"Cu'ious  thing  abote  dese  ole  lungs 
of  mine!"  he  said.  "Even  befo'  Ah  go 
on  out  in  de  yahd  to  commence  ma  wuk 
27 


THE    OLD   NEST 

ag'in,  dem  old  lights  o'  mine  re'lize  how 
dat  cold  wind  is  goin'  to  smash  'em 
afta  me  standin'  in  dis  hot  room  so  long, 
and  gettin'  ma  po's  starin'  wide!" 

Hannah  came  back  in  the  room  to  lay 
the  cloth,  and  Mrs.  Anthon  simply 
nodded  to  her : 

''The  bottle  is  up  in  the  bathroom 
medicine  chest." 

"Ah  feel  betta  a 'ready,"  sighed  Un 
cle  Ned,  and  he  tried  to  look  better  with 
out  looking  quite  well  enough  to  be 
pronounced  cured.  He  was  greatly  con 
cerned  with  looking  unconcerned,  and 
kept  his  eyes  shyly  on  the  floor,  though 
his  chops  worked  thirstily,  and  he 
perked  one  ear  after  Hannah's  foot 
steps,  which  made  a  slow  but  dramatic 
diminuendo  up  the  steps,  and  a  thrilling 
crescendo  down. 

Uncle  Ned  took  the  glass  she  brought, 
28 


THE    OLD   NEST 

with  a  reproachful  murmur :  ' l  Too  bad 
you  went  so  fur  and  fotch  so  little." 
But  when  she  offered  the  pitcher,  he 
growled:  " Never  po'  water  on  a  live 
coal.  It  spiles  de  coal,  and  leaves  on'y 
de  smoke." 

He  raised  the  glass  with  a  courtly 
gesture,  and  gave  Mrs.  Anthon  a  silent 
toast  for  benediction.  His  huge  lips 
smacked  and  his  left  hand  followed  the 
course  of  the  gulp.  He  felt  and  looked 
as  if  he  had  swallowed  a  small  comet. 
The  tears  sprang  out  of  his  eyes,  and  he 
gasped  with  exquisite  anguish.  Then 
he  grinned  and  said: 

"Thank  you  ve'y  kinely,  Miss'  An- 
th  'n.  Dat  little  live  coal  done  staht  sech 
a  blaze  Ah'm  goin'  out  an'  nach'ly  bu'n 
up  dat  yahd." 

He  made  his  turn,  and  went  out,  cir 
cumventing  his  own  feet.  For  several 
29 


THE    OLD    NEST 

minutes  he  almost  worked,  before  the 
reverie  in  which  he  lived  enveloped  him 
again. 

Mrs.  Anthon  had  hardly  seen  or  heard 
him.  She  sat  musing  upon  her  loneli 
ness,  not  heeding  the  slow  errands  of 
Hannah  to  and  fro,  till  finally  the 
abridged  table  was  clothed  and  set. 

Doctor  Anthon  found  his  wife  still 
there  when  he  came  home.  He  popped 
a  kiss  on  her  tired  brow,  and  said  with 
a  professional  sick-room  cheer  that  dis 
guised  his  own  personal  fatigues  and  re 
grets  : 

"Well,  Mother,  I  saw  the  little  girl 
off  on  the  train.  She  sent  you  a  million 
kisses,  and  waved  good-by  till  the  train 
started  across  the  river.  Why,  what  's 
happened  to  the  dining-room?  It  looks 
so  much  bigger." 

"The  table  is  smaller." 

"Oh!" 

30 


THE    OLD    NEST 

He  understood,  and  they  took  their 
places  at  the  dual  festival  that  now  con 
fronted  them  for  some  indefinite  time. 
He  wanted  to  comfort  his  wife,  but  he 
had  no  source  of  comfort  to  draw  from. 

He  was  picturing  the  dining-room  as 
it  had  been  from  the  first  high-chair  that 
wedged  between  them  to  the  growing 
colony  of  chairs,  some  high,  some  low, 
and  usually  one  chair  with  a  big  dic 
tionary  upon  it  for  a  middling  child. 
For  years  it  had  seemed  that  the  table 
was  bigger  than  the  room;  the  children 
were  perched  almost  on  the  window  sills 
and  against  the  stove.  When  the  Doc 
tor  was  called  to  the  telephone,  as  he 
usually  was  at  meal-time,  he  could 
barely  squeeze  between  the  sierra  of 
chair-backs  and  the  wall.  And  the  time 
he  had  had  feeding  that  mob!  The 
amount  of  provender  they  could  whisk 
from  view!  The  innocent  greed,  the 
31 


THE    OLD    NEST 

boisterous  war  of  silver  and  china,  the 
chatter  and  laughter ;  the  appalling  bills 
they  meant  at  butcher's  and  baker's, 
grocer's  and  shoemaker's! 

And  now  the  small  table,  the  table 
cloth  immaculate  of  gravy- splash  and 
jelly-blotch,  the  frugal  meals,  the  soft 
conversation  of  the  lonely  old  captain 
and  mate  on  a  deserted  and  drifting 
ship,  without  cargo,  crew  or  destination 
— now  and  evermore. 

He  felt  all  that  his  wife  felt,  but  in  a 
man's  way,  and  with  a  man's  necessity 
for  looking  bold  in  all  adversities.  The 
dreary  meal  was  nearly  done  before  he 
could  muster  the  words  and  the  spirit 
to  say: 

11  We  mustn't  sit  here  and  mope  like 
this,  Mother.  We  're  back  where  we 
started, — just  you  and  me.  We  have 
each  other,  and  the  children  are  all  good 
children,  and  they  '11  be  piling  home  any 
32 


THE    OLD   NEST 

day,  and  Emily  at  least  will  be  with  us  a 
long  while  yet.  That  was  the  last  thing 
she  said  as  the  train  pulled  out:  'Tell 
mama,'  she  shouted,  'tell  mama,  I  '11  be 
home  just  as  soon  as  ever  I  can.' 

Mrs.  Anthon  met  his  smile  with  an 
other,  but  there  was  more  bravery  than 
hope  in  those  two  old  smiles. 


33 


II 

WHILE  these  white  polls  were 
drawing  such  deep  significances 
from  the  business  of  reducing  a  piece  of 
furniture  by  the  width  of  one  plank,  the 
young  girl,  the  recentest  deserter  from 
the  family,  was  making  magic  carpet 
adventure  and  Arabian  enchantment  out 
of  the  taking  of  one  of  the  regular  trains 
for  New  York. 

Emily  was  running  East  with  all  the 
speed  an  express  could  lend  her.  Even 
that  was  not  enough  for  her  impatience, 
for  she  sat  with  one  warm  cheek  chilling 
on  the  window  as  she  tried  to  send  her 
eyes  ahead  like  scouts  to  bring  in  yet 
earlier  tidings  of  Canaan. 

Her  eyes  were  still  wet  with  the  tears 
34 


THE    OLD    N'EST 

she  had  shed  in  leaving  her  father  and 
mother,  but  the  tears  had  been  less  those 
of  regret  at  the  parting  than  tears  of 
tender  affection  and  of  pity  for  the  tears 
oozing  from  their  brave  old  eyes.  Hers 
were  the  sweet  April  sprinkle  of  sympa 
thy  and  affection;  theirs  were  the  acrid 
drops  of  age  relinquishing  yet  one  more 
dear  thing — the  very  eye-sweat  of 
agony. 

The  young  girl's  heart  was  as  good  as 
any  young  heart,  and  it  ached  for  the  old 
hearts;  but  it  had  its  own  needs  and 
duties.  It  called  itself  selfish  and 
granted  itself  absolution;  for  everybody 
believes  in  expiation  by  nomination. 

Emily  was  going  East  to  visit  her 
married  sister,  and  so  her  clearance  pa 
pers  read.  If  she  smuggled  a  little  un 
declared  romance  out  of  harbor,  and 
carried  Cupid  as  a  stowaway  more  or 
less  connived  at — well,  youth  has  a  right 
35 


THE    OLD    NEST 

to  a  few  secrets.  Heaven  knows  how 
many  old  age  acquires,  and  has  thrust 
upon  it. 

This  train  made  its  usual  stops  at  the 
usual  matter-of-fact  cities,  but  to  Emily 
their  names  were  nothing  more  prosaic 
than  Verona,  Ispahan,  Damascus  and 
Istamboul.  The  station  at  the  end  of 
Emily's  time-table  was  entitled  Eden, 
but  the  porter  said,  ''We  are  just  com 
ing  into  New  York.  Shall  I  bresh  you 
off!" 

Her  sister  actually  met  her  at  the 
station — which  is  something  of  a  feat 
in  Manhattan.  Kate  had  lived  long 
enough  in  a  great  city  to  have  acquired 
the  habit  of  being  always  as  busy  as  a 
demon,  and  she  hoped  that  Emily  would 
understand  what  a  tribute  of  devotion 
she  was  paying  in  being  on  hand.  It 
was  almost  the  last  word  in  hospitality, 
not  to  say  agility,  to  find  on  which  of  the 
36 


THE    OLD    NEST 

countless  tracks,  on  which  of  the  levels, 
that  one  invariably  late  train  would 
probably  sneak  in.  And  then  Kate  had 
to  wait  in  the  huddled  humiliation  of  a 
roped-in  mob. 

Kate,  who  was  something  of  a  cynic, 
had  noted  what  peculiar-looking  people 
had  rushed  out  to  meet  what  peculiar- 
looking  arrivals  in  the  slipshod  caravan 
disgorged  from  the  trains,  and  she  could 
not  help  hoping  that  Emily,  whom  she 
had  not  seen  for  years,  would  not  be 
quite  too  unutterably  dowdy  and  small 
town. 

She  was  not  prepared  for  the  vision 
that  arrived.  Emily  came  up  the  line 
like  an  allegory  of  spring,  winsoming 
her  way  across  a  wintry  marsh. 

Kate  threw  her  head  a  little  higher 
to  have  one  good  proud  look  at  her  be 
fore  she  claimed  her.  At  that  moment 
a  strange  young  man,  who  had  stood  at 
37 


THE    OLD   NEST 

Kate's  side,  tiptoeing  and  peering, 
started  forward,  ducked  under  the  rope, 
brushed  aside  two  or  three  restraining 
guards,  and  dashed  through  the  incom 
ing  crowd.  To  Kate's  amazement,  he 
made  straight  for  Emily  and  Emily 
made  straight  for  him. 

They  merely  shook  hands,  but  their 
looks  were  so  ardent  that  it  would  have 
been  decenter  to  hug  and  kiss  and  be 
done  with  it.  In  the  grim  and  bustling 
railroad  station,  mutual  idolatry  like 
theirs  was  so  conspicuous  that  even  the 
red-capped  porters  noted  it,  and  rolled 
their  billiard  eyes. 

Kate  gasped  with  curiosity  and  vexa 
tion.  When  her  sister  came  along,  she 
could  do  no  more  than  say: 

"Well,  Emily—" 

And  Emily  only  said : 

"Why,  Kitty!" 

Kate  kissed  Emily  sisterly,  with  a 
38 


THE    OLD    NEST 

railroad-station  decorum;  Emily,  while 
she  was  at  it,  hugged  Kate  so  hard,  and 
kissed  her  so  often,  that  Kate  felt  sure 
the  salute  was  vicarious,  and  that  Em 
ily's  treacherous  eyes  were  looking  past 
her  own  ear  into  the  young  man's  eyes. 

Kate  fell  in  and  walked  alongside,  and 
Emily  had  the  impudent  naivete  to  fin 
ish  what  she  was  saying  to  the  young 
man  before  she  asked  how  Harry  was — 
or  even  the  children.  At  length  Kate 
nudged  her : 

1 '  You  might  at  least  introduce  me. ' ' 

Emily  blushed  six  shades  deeper,  and 
was  so  confused  that  she  only  mumbled : 

"Oh,  forgive  me,  Stephen.  I  want  to 
present  you  to  my  sister." 

Kate  nodded,  and  said: 

"I  am  Mrs.  Ambler.  I  presume  you 
are  Mr.  - 

"Mr.  MacLeod,  yes,"  the  young  man 
stammered,  feeling  now  sure  that  Kate 
39 


THE    OLD   NEST 

had  been  told  all  about  him,  and  ap 
proved. 

He  tagged  along  with  them  to  the  taxi- 
cab.  Kate  wondered  if  he  were  going 
to  get  in,  but  he  and  Emily  began  a 
serial  farewell  so  prolonged  that  Kate 
clambered  in  alone  to  hold  the  cab  be 
fore  the  indignant  starter  rented  it  to 
somebody  else. 

When  the  tangle  of  other  passengers 
began  to  murmur  protests,  the  young 
couple  consented  to  adjourn  their  ses 
sion.  Mr.  MacLeod  boosted  Emily  in 
by  the  elbow,  then  pushed  his  hand  on 
to  Kate.  She  took  it,  and  said,  meaning 
to  be  sarcastic:  "Come  up  and  see  us 
some  time,  won't  you?"  But  he  an 
swered  with  the  most  complacent  de 
light  :  "  Oh,  thank  you !  I  'd  love  to ! " 

Kate  was  going  to  give  him  the  ad 
dress,  but  he  gave  it  himself  to  the 
chauffeur,  and  the  door  was  slammed 
40 


THE    OLD    NEST 

upon  him.  For  the  first  few  minutes, 
Kate's  indignation  at  Emily  was 
knocked  out  of  her  by  the  appalling 
plunges  of  the  taxicab.  She  wondered 
if  her  head  would  not  be  snapped  off, 
and  sent  hurtling  through  the  glass,  and 
she  was  hoping  that  when  it  did,  it  would 
take  the  chauffeur's  head  along  with  it. 

When  the  necessity  of  keeping  her 
cranium  on  her  vertebrae  had  passed, 
she  turned  to  administer  an  elder-sis 
terly,  married-sisterly  reproof  to  the 
selfish  young  monster  at  her  side.  She 
found  Emily  simmering  in  utter  con 
tentment  like  a  cozy  little  kettle;  and 
Emily,  again  forgetting  to  ask  how 
Harry  was,  and  the  children,  proceeded 
to  say,  or  rather  to  croon:  "Isn't 
Stephen  simply  the  handsomest,  dearest 
thing  you  ever  saw  in  all  your  born 
days?" 

Kate  might  have  achieved  something 
41 


THE    OLD    NEST 

crushing,  but  just  then  the  taxicab  vol 
planed  over  a  glorious  boulder,  plounced 
into  a  pile  of  Belgian  blocks,  and  slid- 
dered  through  a  pool  of  black  mush  all 
at  once.  Kate  was  so  churned  and  bat 
tered  and  twisted  askew  that  she  was 
glad  to  be  alive. 

Then  they  worried  into  Fifth  Avenue, 
and  the  going  was  good  enough  for  them 
to  get  their  heads  and  hats  and  hair  on 
straight  again,  and  settle  down  for  a 
woman-to-womanly  chat,  both  talking  at 
once. 

Somewhere  in  this  chaos  of  conversa 
tion  Emily  asked  the  polite  questions, 
and  was  told  that  Harry  was  all  right 
and  the  children  all  well  except  that  one 
was  just  getting  over  bronchitis,  the 
youngest  was  half-way  through  the 
mumps,  and  the  second  boy  just  coming 
down  with  vulgar  fractions. 
42 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Emily  asked  also  about  brother  Tom, 
the  lawyer,  and  Kate  answered : 

"Oh,  he  's  well.  At  least,  I  suppose 
he  is.  Of  course,  I  never  see  him.  I 
read  his  name  in  the  papers  once  in  a 
while  and  telephone  him  my  congratula 
tions  when  he  wins  a  big  case.  Then  I 
invite  him  to  dinner,  and  spend  half  an 
hour  agreeing  on  an  evening  he  can  dine 
with  us,  and  then  he  telephones  me  that 
he  's  unexpectedly  prevented,  which  is 
just  what  I  expected. 

"But  he  promised  to  come  over  to  see 
you  this  evening,  if  he  had  to  disappoint 
the  Supreme  Court.  Tom  's  awfully 
fond  of  you,  Emily.  But  he  thinks  of 
you  as  still  in  short  skirts,  with  freckles. 
You  haven't  freckles  any  more,  have 
you?  That  's  nice.  Tom  will  be  killed, 
though,  to  hear  that  you  Ve  got  a  love 
affair.  So  am  I.  Little  Emily  with  a 
43 


THE    OLD   NEST 

love  affair.  Think  of  it!  It  will  make 
us  all  feel  terribly  old.  What  do  father 
and  mother  say  about  it?" 

"Well,  I  haven't  told  them  yet.  It 
has  n  't  gone  quite  far  enough. ' ' 

"Thank  Heaven  for  that.  But  I  sup 
pose  that  some  of  these  days  you  will  be 
stepping  off  into  space  the  way  the  rest 
of  us  did.  And  then  how  will  they  get 
along  at  home — those  poor  old  souls 
with  not  a  single  chick  left!  Eeally, 
you  ought  to  think  of  them,  Emily." 

"Well,  in  the  first  place,  even  if  I 
should  marry  Stephen,  it  won't  be  for 
years  and  years." 

"Oh,  it  's  one  of  that  kind  of—" 

"Not  at  all,  but  you  see,  he  has  n't  got 
very  far  along  in  the  world  yet." 

"That  's  good.  I  hope  he  starves  till 
he  's  ninety.  Because  really,  papa  and 
mania  oughtn't  to  be  left  alone  out 
there." 

44 


THE    OLD   NEST 

"Why  didn't  you  think  of  that  when 
you  got  married?" 

''Well,  you  see,  the  rest  of  us  always 
left  somebody  at  home.  But  it  's  differ 
ent  with  you,  Emily.  It  's  more  serious 
when  the  last  child  goes,  for  one  child 
can  keep  a  father  and  mother  as  busy  as 
ten!  You  really  must  be  very  careful, 
Emily.  And  if  I  were  you,  I  'd  try  to 
marry  some  nice  fellow  in  Carthage. 
There  must  be  some  nice  fellows  there 
in  Carthage — several  new  families  have 
moved  in  since  I  left.  Now  if  you  really 
love  your  poor  old  papa  and  mama, 
you  '11  do  that,  Emily.  And  try  to  live 
next  door,  so  that  you  can  run  in  often. 
Or  better  yet,  you  might  just  go  and  live 
in  the  old  house.  There  's  plenty  of 
room  since  we  are  all  away." 

Kate  was  so  delighted  with  the  plans 
she  was  devising  for  the  little  snub- 
nosed,  pig-tailed  gawk  she  had  bossed 
45 


THE    OLD   NEST 

about  during  her  last  years  at  Carthage, 
that  she  was  almost  dazed  when  she 
turned  to  Emily  to  see  the  effect  of  her 
words,  and  found  before  her  a  stranger, 
a  perfect-featured,  well-groomed,  fash 
ionably-gowned  lady  whose  expression 
was  one  of  smiling  disdain.  Worse  yet 
was  the  poised  self-control  of  Emily's 
quiet  comment :  ' '  Since  you  're  arrang 
ing  all  the  rest,  Kate  dear,  what  com 
plexion  would  you  prefer  my  husband  to 
have?  and  what  wall-paper  would  you 
select  for  our  living-room?" 

Kate  flushed  and  gasped: 

"Why,  Emily,  what  a  nasty  temper 
you  've  developed  since  I  knew  you ! ' ' 


46 


Ill 

THAT  night  elder  brother  Tom  came 
to  dinner.  He,  too,  was  astounded 
to  find  that  the  ugly  duckling  he  had  left 
in  the  home  pond  was  a  serene  white 
swan.  Emily  was  astounded  to  find 
how  the  hard  work  that  brings  success 
had  left  grooves  of  hard  work  rather 
than  any  glow  of  success  on  Tom's 
strong  face.  He  looked  older  than  she 
could  have  imagined  an  own  brother  of 
hers  to  be. 

When  Kate  broke  the  horrible  news 
that  Emily  had  taken  on  a  love  affair, 
Tom  was  worse  shocked  than  she  had 
been.  His  first  feeling  was  a  primitive 
revulsion  against  the  brutality  of  any 
man's  daring  to  approach  this  child 
47 


THE    OLD   NEST 

amorously.  A  glance  at  Emily  showed 
him  that  many  men  were  bound  to  ap 
proach  her  so.  His  heart  swung  then 
into  the  fear  that  Kate  felt. 

' '  Oh,  Lord,  the  poor  old  folks  at  home 
are  in  for  it  now!  The  final  solitude  is 
ahead  of  them!  You  mustn't  forget, 
Emily,  how  good  they  've  always  been 
to  you.  Even  parents  have  some 
rights. ' ' 

''And  grown-up  children  have  none,  it 
seems,"  Emily  retorted.  "Well,  if  you 
all  insist,  I  suppose  I  '11  have  to  go  back 
to  Carthage,  and  live  and  die  an  old 
maid." 

"Oh,  no,  of  course  not.  We  don't 
mean  that  at  all.  But — " 

"But  what?" 

There  was  no  answer,  and  the  conver 
sation  flagged.     Emily  was  bewildered. 
She  had  come  East  expecting  to  be  re 
ceived  with  glowing  welcome.    And  she 
48 


THE    OLD    NEST 

was  received  as  a  something  wicked  to 
be  admonished  and  reformed. 

And  her  love  affair:  she  had  thought 
of  it  as  a  gleaming  altruism,  a  superla 
tive  surrender  of  herself  to  a  young 
man's  career  and  his  noble  desires, 
something  sacred,  a  beatitude  with  a 
halo  on  it.  And  lo,  in  the  eyes  of  her 
own  brother  and  sister  her  sacrifice  was 
looked  upon  as  a  merciless  act  of  ab 
normal  selfishness!  She  wished  she 
had  never  come  East.  She  wished  she 
had  never  been  born. 

Kate  had  prepared  an  elaborate  din 
ner  for  the  guest  of  honor,  but  this 
Banquo  of  tragedy  had  come  and  taken 
a  chair  at  Emily's  side.  The  feast  was 
as  doleful  as  the  lonely  dinner  in  the  far- 
off  old  home  which  Kate  and  Tom  were 
picturing  in  their  own  minds.  The  vi 
sion  embittered  them  toward  the  relent 
less  Emily.  Tom  kept  silence,  but  Kate, 
4  49 


THE    OLD   NEST 

when  the  dessert  came  round,  was  moved 
to  a  parable. 

Everybody  declined  fruit,  as  every 
body  always  does  at  American  dinners. 
One  would  as  soon  think  of  eating  the 
silver  or  the  flowers.  But  Kate  took  up 
a  large  and  gorgeous  peach  from  Cali 
fornia,  and  she  was  tormented  enough  to 
say: 

1  'This  peach  reminds  me  of  a  certain 
young  lady.  It  is  beautiful  and  shapely 
and  sweet,  but  break  it  open  and  you  find 
the  heart  of  stone,  hard  and  dark  and 
bitter." 

She  wrenched  apart  the  mellow  flesh 
of  the  peach,  and  the  stone,  wrinkled 
and  unyielding,  rattled  on  her  plate. 
Emily  winced  and  turned  pale  at  the 
very  sound;  her  lofty  brows  bowed 
themselves  in  sudden  pain  and  her  wide 
eyes  were  pools  of  sudden  tears. 

Tom  felt  a  gush  of  sympathy  for  the 
50 


THE    OLD   NEST 

girl.  His  hand  went  out  to  seize  and 
squeeze  her  hand,  and  he  stared  tenderly 
at  her,  though  his  words  went  to  the 
elder  sister: 

"We  mustn't  forget,  Kate,  that  with 
out  that  rock  inside  the  peach,  there  is 
no  seed  and  no  hope  of  future  peaches. 
Let  's  let  the  poor  child  alone.  She  has 
youth  and  she  has  beauty,  and  if  she 
doesn't  find  happiness  now,  when,  in 
God's  name,  will  she  find  it?" 

This  unexpected  reenforcement 
touched  Emily's  lonesome  little  soul, 
and  this  middle-aged  stranger  was  mag 
ically  restored  to  the  brother  she  had 
loved  long  ago.  But  curiously,  though 
as  usual,  approval  and  support  shook 
her  faith  in  her  own  righteousness,  when 
opposition  and  rebuke  had  strengthened 
it. 

And  now  she  was  all  for  surrendering 
herself  to  this  other  martyrdom.  Emily 
51 


THE    OLD   NEST 

was  determined  to  be  a  martyr  to  some 
body  or  something. 

"No,  I  '11  go  home.  I  see  now  how 
heartless  it  would  be  of  me  to  leave  papa 
and  mama.  I  promised  them  to  come 
back  and  I  will.  I  '11  go  home  to-mor 
row  morning." 


52 


IV 

PROTESTS  were  vain.  To-morrow 
morning  she  would  go.  A  little 
later,  however,  she  remembered  that 
young  Mr.  MacLeod  had  arranged  to 
call  the  next  evening.  She  would  be 
compelled  to  stay  over  one  day  more — 
but  not  a  second  day  at  any  cost. 

Mr.  MacLeod  came  the  next  evening. 
He  announced  that  he  had  bought  tickets 
for  a  very  important  play  the  next  even 
ing.  Emily  could  hardly  throw  those 
back  on  his  hands,  especially  as  they 
were  expensive  seats,  and  Mr.  MacLeod 
had  to  work  too  hard  for  what  little 
money  his  cruel  employers  begrudged 
him,  to  waste  the  tickets. 

"Perhaps  he  might  take  some  other 
53 


THE    OLD   NEST 

girl,"  Kate  insinuated  with  amiable 
malice. 

Emily  ridiculed  the  suggestion,  but 
she  took  no  risks.  Her  father  and 
mother  would  not  miss  her  for  one  day 
more, — or,  in  fact,  a  day  or  two  more. 
They  would  probably  be  displeased  at 
her  taking  so  long  and  costly  a  voyage 
for  so  brief  a  taste  of  the  advantages  of 
the  city.  They  would  at  least  want  her 
to  see  the  Metropolitan  Art  Gallery. 
That  was  educational,  and  Stephen  had 
planned  to  take  her  there  Sunday  after 
noon.  He  was  very  fond  of  pictures, 
Stephen  was. 

Young  Mr.  MacLeod  had  met  Emily 
at  a  football  game,  when  he  was  a  col 
legian  and  she  a  collegienne.  He  was 
no  special  athlete,  and  she  was  not  un 
usually  bloodthirsty.  They  happened 
to  be  seated  together  in  the  same  crowd 
of  friends.  She  had  come  with  another 
54 


THE    OLD    NEST 

fellow,  and  lie  had  brought  another  girl ; 
but  before  the  first  half  of  the  game  was 
over,  he  had  ceased  to  bellow  himself 
scarlet  to  the  baton  of  the  cheer-captain, 
and  was  explaining  the  game  in  dulcet 
tones  to  Emily.  During  the  second 
half,  he  and  Emily  had  found  so  much  to 
say  to  each  other  that  they  ignored  the 
shocks  of  the  rival  buffalo  lines.  They 
did  not  even  see  the  sensational  sixty- 
five-yard  run  of  whoever  it  was  made 
the  famous  sixty-five-yard  run  which 
won  that  famous  game  for  whichever 
side  it  was  that  won  it. 

After  the  game  was  over,  in  the  hor 
rible  jam  of  the  crowd,  he  somehow  lost 
the  young  lady  he  brought,  and  Emily 
somehow  lost  the  young  man  that 
brought  her.  So  Stephen  had  to  take 
charge  of  her ;  and  very  gallant  it  was  of 
him,  too — with  the  accent  on  the  "lant." 

The  crush  was  so  oppressive  and  so 
55 


THE    OLD    NEST 

rowdy  that  Emily  came  near  fainting. 
Mr.  MacLeod  fought  the  mob  back 
dauntlessly  and  with  such  unexpected 
strength  that  he  reminded  her  of  Leon- 
idas  or  Leander  or  somebody  at  the 
bridge  of  Thermopylas,  keeping  back  the 
Persians  from  the  city  of  Xerxes,  or 
something. 

He  got  her  home  safely,  but  not  very 
speedily.  Of  course,  she  had  to  invite 
him  to  call.  Of  course,  he  called. 

They  exchanged  many  letters  during 
the  rest  of  the  year,  and  the  temperature 
rose  so  gradually  from  "Dear  Miss  An- 
thon"  via  "Dear  Miss  Emily  Anthon" 
to  "Dearest  Emily"  that  she  hardly 
noticed  it.  He  graduated  and  obtained 
a  miserably  unworthy  and  mercantile 
position  with  an  importing  house  in 
New  York. 

Letters  continued  to  flit  back  and 
forth  like  carrier  pigeons  through  the 
56 


THE    OLD   NEST 

long  summer  and  the  long  winter. 
Then  the  frenzy  of  spring  that  released 
all  the  banked  fires  of  the  earth  had 
stirred  their  young  hearts  to  unendur 
able  desire,  and  Emily  had  manipulated 
the  visit  to  Kate.  And  now  they  were 
met  again  in  mating  time.  Other  ties 
and  other  duties  were  like  the  ice  walls 
that  jailed  the  streams,  the  withes  of 
snow  that  held  back  the  tulips,  the  frosts 
that  drugged  the  leaves  in  their  buds. 

All  over  the  world,  the  same  thing 
was  going  on  in  countless  hearts.  A 
young  Chinaman  drafting  a  constitution 
for  a  prehistoric  despotism  stopped  in 
the  midst  of  an  epoch-making  clause  to 
kiss  a  cherry  blossom  that  had  been 
thrown  to  him.  A  middle-aged  Ger 
man  general,  drafting  a  plan  of  attack 
on  Greenwich,  paused  to  read  over 
again  a  letter  from  his  third  Frau-to-be. 
A  Norwegian  scientist  let  slip  a  Nobel- 
57 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Prize-winning  discovery  because  he  was 
thinking  of  somebody  when  the  reaction 
took  place. 

The  apple  trees  that  year  were  full  of 
the  same  longing,  the  grass  whispered 
it,  herds  lowed  it,  and  birds  fluted  it. 
To  each  and  every,  it  was  the  one  new 
and  important  event  of  human  chronicle, 
and  began  a  new  calendar. 

By  a  conservative  estimate,  there 
were  only  as  many  love-affairs  on  earth 
that  year  as  there  are  stars  in  the  sky, 
and  they  were  all  as  absolutely  novel 
and  unheard-of  as  an  engaged  couple's 
first  full  moon. 

The  spring  that  year  was  also  won 
derful  beyond  words.  It  was  written  ex 
pressly  for  Emily  and  Stephen,  and  no 
season  like  it  had  been  seen  upon  this 
earth  since  the  previous  spring.  Noth 
ing  at  all  could  resemble  its  ineffable 
sorceries,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
58 


THE    OLD    NEST 

a  hundred  thousand  springs  or  more  be 
fore  and  as  many  springs  or  more  as 
may  come  after. 

For  one  thing,  the  snows  melted  that 
spring,  and  the  ice  on  the  streams  went 
away  somewhere.  The  ground  which 
winter  had  left  as  dark  and  hard  as 
bronze  somehow  took  on  the  most  ex 
quisite  green  patina,  and  became  so  soft 
that  a  number  of  people  ran  plows 
through  it.  There  were  numerous  in 
conspicuous  spots  where  small  purple 
miracles  were  enacted  closely  resem 
bling  the  violets  one  had  bought  in  the 
shops  during  the  winter.  Apple  and 
cherry  trees  were  suddenly  overveiled 
with  brocaded  robes  that  turned  them 
into  huge  bouquets  upheld  to  a  smiling 
sky.  That  spring's  breezes  were  aeo- 
lian  tunes  whose  rapturous  syllables 
nobody  could  explain,  nor  anybody  un 
derstand  except  any  two  bodies  who 
59 


THE    OLD   NEST 

happened  to  be  levering  at  a  window  or 
in  a  meadow  or  a  room  or  a  park  or  any 
where. 

That  spring  was  so  fine,  so  superla 
tively  fine,  that  several  persons  tried  to 
describe  it  in  poetry.  Every  language 
was  used,  from  Dyak  to  Basque,  but 
no  language  seemed  entirely  satisfac 
tory.  Music  was  tried.  An  Arab  cross- 
legged  in  a  sea  of  sand  endeavored 
to  play  it  on  a  many-stringed  santir, 
while  a  copper-colored  Apache  in  Ari 
zona  squatted  in  the  alkali  and  tried  to 
tap  it  on  a  drum  to  the  satisfaction  of 
somebody  under  a  blanket  a  little  dis 
tance  off.  But  nobody  managed  quite 
to  succeed  and  the  bliss  remained  ex 
cruciating. 

Stephen  and  his  Emily  knew,  how 
ever,  that  this  spring  was  theirs  alone, 
made  for  them,  and  they  for  it.  They 
were  grateful  for  it,  and  the  only  things 
60 


THE    OLD    NEST 

in  the  world  they  found  hateful  were  the 
absence  of  enough  money  for  matri 
mony,  and  the  presence  of  too  many 
people  for  solitude. 

When  Sunday  afternoon  came,  Ste 
phen  MacLeod  came  with  it.  Emily 
told  him  that  she  had  told  her  sister  that 
she  was  leaving  for  home  Monday — or 
Tuesday. 

"Or  Wednesday — or  Thursday," 
Stephen  said;  "or  next  year — or  not  at 
all." 

Emily  giggled  at  this,  and  thought 
how  amazing  it  was  that  the  same  man 
could  be  at  the  same  time  so  wonder 
fully  intelligent,  so  terribly  handsome, 
and  so  awfully  witty.  They  could  have 
driven  to  the  Metropolitan  Art  Gallery, 
but  walking  was  such  good  exercise. 

The  park  was  painfully  crowded.  As 
Stephen  deliciously  put  it:  "The  trou 
ble  with  this  park  is  that  it  is  so  well 
61 


THE    OLD    NEST 

named.  It  's  so  blamed  Central  that 
everybody  goes  through  it. ' ' 

They  found,  however,  certain  fields, 
where  they  could  get  a  few  yards  away 
from  the  throng.  Emily  said  that  ever 
since  that  terrible  experience  in  the 
football  crowd,  crowds  made  her  nerv 
ous.  But  usually,  just  as  they  were 
comfortably  aloof  on  a  plushy  sward, 
some  policeman  would  blow  his  whistle 
and  howl  to  them  to  keep  off  the  grass. 

The  whole  park  was  a  Gretna  Green 
of  bird  marriages  and  elopements.  In 
one  of  the  trees,  Stephen  noted  the  be 
ginnings  of  a  nest.  He  was  wonder 
fully  observing,  Stephen.  And  "here 
was  a  very  early  bird  already  erecting 
his — or  was  it  her? — home.  Stephen 
said  that  if  the  bird  weren't  careful, 
the  policeman  would  arrest  it  for  work 
ing  on  Sunday  and  walking  on  the  grass. 
Stephen  also  wondered  what  the  bird 
62 


THE    OLD    NEST 

labor  organizations  would  have  to  say 
about  a  non-union  bird  building  his  own 
house. 

Emily  and  Stephen  sat  on  the  nearest 
bench  they  could  find  and  watched  the 
patient  little  squatter  wattling  his  own 
hut.  Stephen,  who  knew  a  lot  about 
architecture  and  things,  said:  "That 
bird  builds  his  thatched  roof  upside 
down,  and  forgets  to  put  in  his  cellar." 

He  was  always  thinking  up  the  quaint 
est  things.  He  kept  Emily  in  a  con 
stant  seethe  of  admiration.  Then  he 
shot  a  thrill  through  her  by  solemnly 
musing:  "I  wonder  how  long  it  will  be 
before  we  build  our  own  little  home, 
Emily." 

She  choked  with  bliss  at  the  thought 
and  squeezed  his  arm  hard.  It  was 
such  a  hard  arm,  too.  Stephen  was 
wonderfully  strong  for  such  a  brainy 
man. 

63 


THE    OLD    NEST 

They  sat  enchantedly  watching  the 
slow,  swift  work  of  the  winged  home- 
weaver,  finding  and  fetching  its  own 
warp  and  woof,  and  needling  it  on  the 
tree-loom  with  its  own  beak.  They 
found  in  this  ecstatic  industry  an  em 
blem  of  their  own  ambition,  a  reproof  of 
their  own  delay. 

"With  even  smaller  capital,  and  a  sal 
ary  littler  than  mine,"  said  Stephen, 
"that  bird  is  making  his  home  ready  for 
his  bride,  and  when  it  's  ready,  she  won't 
wait  a  minute.  They  '11  set  up  light 
nestkeeping  and  trust  to  Providence. 
It  seems  sort  of  foolish  and  cowardly 
for  us  to  go  on  postponing  our  happi 
ness,  making  ourselves  miserable  for 
fear  we  '11  be  miserable.  What  would 
you  say  if  I  asked  you  to  get  married 
now,  Emilums?  We  could  rent  a  little 
flat  about  as  big  as  that  nest,  and  I  'm 
sure  we  could  pick  up  crumbs  enough  to 
64 


THE    OLD    NEST 

keep  from  starving.    What  do  you  say, 
Emilums?" 

Emilums  shivered  with  fear  at  the 
thought,  but  it  was  rather  that  she  was 
afraid  of  the  too  great  happiness  than 
of  the  too  meager  fortune.  They  talked 
it  over  for  hours,  figuring  the  price  of 
potatoes  and  paradise  on  the  back  of  an 
envelope,  and  alternately  resolving  and 
recoiling.  When  he  was  eager,  she  was 
dubious ;  and  when  he  had  convinced  her 
that  it  was  feasible,  he  found  himself  in 
doubt. 

The  question  was  still  undecided  when 
they  noticed  that  the  bird  had  knocked 
off  work  and  the  street  lamps  were 
alight  in  sky  and  roadway.  It  was  too 
late  to  visit  the  Gallery  now,  and  they 
sauntered  home  through  the  beseeching 
twilight,  all  thronged  up  with  longing 
and  the  aching  need  of  one  another's 
companionship. 

5  65 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Kate,  being  a  resident  of  New  York, 
had  never  been  inside  the  Metropolitan 
Gallery,  and  she  was  easily  duped  as  to 
the  educational  value  of  Emily's  after 
noon  among  masterpieces.  Emily  was 
delayed  in  leaving  on  Monday,  and  she 
missed  Tuesday's  train,  and  something 
happened  Wednesday.  Thursday  Ste 
phen  brought  great  and  fearful  news. 
His  firm  had  decided  to  send  him  abroad 
to  learn  the  foreign  end  of  their  busi 
ness.  He  was  so  excited  that  he  tried 
to  tell  everything  at  once. 

"In  the  first  place,  the  firm  feels  that 
its  foreign  representatives  must  keep 
up  appearances,  so  they  will  increase 
my  salary.  And  in  the  second  place,  the 
cost  of  living  is  so  much  less  abroad  that 
two  can  live  as  cheaply  as  one." 

Even  Emily  could  feel  that  there  was 
some  flaw  in  this  logic,  but  she  was 
seized  with  a  dread  of  a  greater  evil 
66 


THE    OLD    NEST 

than  even  the  loneliness.  AH  good 
Americans  are  taught  that  the  chief  in 
dustry  of  foreign  countries  is  wicked 
ness.  If  any  evil  is  seen  in  this  climate, 
it  is  manifestly  imported.  Fidelity  is 
an  exclusively  American  product  that 
cannot  stand  transplanting  to  those  nox 
ious  regions  where  vice  reigns  to  the  ex 
clusion  of  every  other  activity. 

Of  course,  Stephen  was  the  noblest, 
truest,  purest,  stanchest,  well-meaning- 
est  darling  on  earth,  but  even  Stephen 
in  Paris — well,  it  was  simply  impossible. 
Here  was  a  problem,  indeed.  It  was 
quite  inconceivable  that  Emily  should 
go  home  before  it  was  settled.  To  re 
turn  to  Carthage,  leaving  Stephen  to 
cross  the  ocean  of  virtue  all  by  himself, 
would  be  sheer  treachery  on  Emily's 
part ;  it  would  be  like  abandoning  in  the 
hour  of  need  a  soul  for  which  she  would 
be  eternally  responsible. 
67 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Those  were  wild  days  in  the  girl's 
heart.  She  tried  to  persuade  Stephen 
to  decline  to  go  abroad ;  to  resign  rather 
than  go  abroad;  to  starve  rather  than 
go  abroad.  But  he  pointed  out  that  a 
man  must  go  where  duty  calls;  a  man 
must  make  sacrifices  for  his  career ;  and 
besides,  though  Paris  was  wicked,  no 
doubt,  in  spots,  so  was  New  York  wicked 
in  spots,  in  many  spots.  Then  he 
painted  a  picture  of  unsuspected  Man 
hattan  which  frightened  Emily  so  that 
she  felt  impelled  to  hasten  to  Paris  as 
a  refuge. 

Besides,  as  Stephen  explained,  a  visit 
to  Paris  had  educational  advantages. 
The  Louvre  was  bigger  even  than  the 
Metropolitan  Gallery,  and  if  they  saw 
the  Louvre  it  would  more  than  make  up 
for  missing  the  Metropolitan.  And  a 
young  lady  nowadays  ought  to  be  able 
to  pronounce  French  correctly,  and 
68 


THE    OLD    NEST 

know  how  to  say  "ongwee"  and  "dis- 
tongay"  and  "ong  bong  pong"  and 
things  like  that. 

The  upshot  of  it  all  was  that  Emily 
once  more  found  herself  confronting 
an  opportunity  for  martyrdom  with  ex 
tenuating  circumstances.  To  sacrifice 
All  to  save  her  affianced  husband  from 
a  future  of  wickedness  was  so  plainly 
her  holy  duty,  that  she  decided  to  cross 
the  Kubicon  under  the  pleasant  alias  of 
the  Seine. 

She  wondered  how  Kate  would  take 
it,  so  she  said  one  day  quite  off-hand- 
edly: 

"Oh,  Kate." 

"Yes,  dear." 

"Stephen  is  thinking  of  going  to  Paris. 
What  would  you  think  if  I  thought  of 
going  with  him  ? ' ' 

"Instead  of  going  home?" 

* '  Ummm-humm. ' ' 
69 


THE    OLD   NEST 

"I  'd  think  you  were  crazy,  and  I  'd 
send  for  the  Lunacy  Board  to  come  and 
put  you  in  a  padded  cell,  before  you  be 
gan  to  froth  at  the  mouth  and  bit  some 
body.  You  weren't  seriously  thinking 
of  any  such  unutterable  nonsense,  were 
you?" 

"Oh,  Stephen  and  I  were  talking  it 
over  the  other  day." 

"Well,  if  that  's  the  best  you  and  your 
Stephen  can  find  to  talk  about,  you  'd 
better  send  him  about  his  business." 

The  next  day  Emily  told  Kate  that 
she  and  Stephen  had  gone  and  got  them 
selves  indissolubly  welded  at  the  Little 
Marriage  Shop  around  the  Corner. 
Kate  had  a  glorious  temper,  and  Em 
ily's  one  comfort  during  the  storm  was 
the  realization  that  the  ship  sailed  the 
next  morning  early. 

She  locked  herself  in  her  room  to 
write  her  mother  all  about  it.  But  by 
70 


THE    OLD    NEST 

the  time  she  had  written  eighteen  pages, 
she  had  only  told  half  of  Stephen's  emi 
nent  qualifications  as  a  husband  and  an 
adorable  son-in-law,  and  she  had  not  be 
gun  to  break  the  news  of  their  marriage 
and  their  foreign  flight.  And  the  day 
was  so  far  gone  that  she  would  never  be 
able  to  do  the  absolutely  necessary  shop 
ping  unless  she  left  the  letter  to  be  fin 
ished  that  night. 

She  had  intended  to  borrow  some 
money  from  Kate,  but  she  preferred  to 
face  Stephen  with  a  pauper's  trousseau. 
She  slipped  out  the  back  way  and  spent 
all  of  her  funds  and  nearly  all  her 
strength,  trying  to  accomplish  the  im 
possible.  She  bought  so  many  exquisite 
filmy  things  that  she  quite  forgot  to  pro 
vide  herself  with  heavy  cloaks  and  rugs 
for  Atlantic  rigors. 

She  devoted  the  remainder  of  the 
evening  to  packing  and  barely  got 
71 


THE    OLD   NEST 

aboard  with  the  gangway.  She  had 
managed  to  send  a  long  telegram  to  her 
mother,  telling  her  how  necessary  the 
step  was  and  how  infinitely  happy  she 
should  be. 

The  pink  thunderbolt  prostrated  Mrs. 
Anthon.  She  pursued  her  husband  all 
over  town  by  telephone  and  finally 
brought  him  home  from  a  patient  in  a 
crisis.  When  she  told  him  the  baleful 
news,  he  was  stunned,  but  his  sick-room 
manner  had  become  instinctive  with  him 
and  he  patted  his  sobbing  wife  on  the 
back  as  he  mumbled : 

"There,  there,  honey!  After  all, 
she  's  not  dead,  is  she?  I  guess  the 
young  man  is  a  nice  young  fellow  and 
he  '11  probably  be  good  to  her  and  make 
her  happy.  And  if  he  doesn't,  she  can 
always  come  home." 

"That  's  it,"  Mrs.  Anthon  wailed. 
72 


THE    OLD   NEST 

"They  can  always  come  home.     That  's 
why  they  never  come  home." 

She  cried  all  night,  and  the  next  day 
she  was  a  worn-out  old  woman.  This  ul 
timate  blast  of  storm  left  her  as  the 
autumnal  tree  is  left  when  some  windy 
night  strips  it  of  its  final  splendors  and 
leaves  it  bleak  and  bare. 


73 


PART  II 
BUSY  PEOPLE 


THE  same  old  ocean  with  the  same 
old  waves,  infinitely  varied  in  in 
finite  monotony.  The  same  old  honey 
moon  of  the  same  old  bridal  couple 
daubed  with  the  same  old  thick  coat  of 
bliss  like  fresh  paint.  The  same  old 
ridiculous  rapture,  the  same  ostrich-like 
efforts  to  conceal  the  utter  happiness 
that  everybody  made  fun  of  and  ought 
to  have  envied. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  the  nest- 
building  of  Mrs.  Emily  Anthon  Mac 
Leod,  who  jumped  whenever  she  heard 
her  new  name,  and  had  never  seen  how 
it  looked  even  on  a  visiting  card.  Of 
course  the  hateful  old  passenger  list  had 
to  go  and  get  it  all  wrong:  "Mr.  S. 
77 


THE    OLD    NEST 

MacLuders,  Mrs.  MacLuders."  And  it 
looked  a  trifle  tame  next  to  "Prince 
Marczali  and  valet,  Princess  Marczali 
and  two  maids." 

The  princess  was  an  American  girl, 
too,  and  she  had  accomplished  the  ambi 
tion  of  every  ambitious  American  girl, 
but  when  Emily  got  a  look  at  the  prince 
and  took  a  look  at  Stephen,  she  decided 
that  she  would  not  swap  husbands  with 
the  princess  for  all  the  valets  and  maids 
in  the  world  as  a  bonus. 

Most  of  the  passengers  found  the 
voyage  stupidly  uneventful,  but  Stephen 
and  Emily  found  it  incessantly  exciting. 
It  was  the  first  trip  abroad  for  both  of 
them,  and  it  was  the  first  wedding  jour 
ney  for  both  of  them.  Getting  really 
acquainted  was  so  important  that  Emily 
kept  postponing  the  completion  of  that 
long,  long  letter  to  her  mother. 
78 


THE    OLD   NEST 

She  had  brought  it  with  her,  in  order 
to  write  it  at  her  oceanic  leisure,  but  day 
followed  day  in  the  dateless  transatlan 
tic  fashion,  until  land  was  sighted 
and  the  writing-rooms  were  suddenly 
crowded  with  eager  writers.  The  boat 
that  brought  on  the  pilot  would  take  off 
the  mail. 

Emily  had  barely  time  to  scribble  a 
hasty  note  to  her  mother,  promising  a 
real  letter  as  soon  as  she  was  safely  on 
land.  Stephen's  mother  and  father 
were  both  long  since  dead  and  he  had 
never  seen  Emily's  parents.  The  fam 
ished  keenness  of  their  longing  for  news 
never  occurred  to  him.  Unconsciously 
he  abetted  Emily's  unwitting  cruelty. 

Part  of  Kate's  bitterness  had  been 

due  to  an  instinctive  foreknowledge  that 

if  Emily  married,  Kate  would  be  left  to 

break  the  news  to  the  family  and  invent 

79 


THE    OLD   NEST 

elaborate  explanations  to  zealously  in 
quiring  friends,  while  Emily  blithely  put 
off  till  the  morrow  all  that  she  should 
have  done  yesterday. 

Mrs.  Anthon  was  just  recuperating 
from  Emily's  telegram,  when  Kate's  let 
ter  came  to  confirm  the  evil  tidings. 
There  followed  the  age-long  period  of 
the  voyage  across,  the  age-long  period 
of  the  letter's  return.  And  at  that  she 
received  only  a  hastily  jotted  series  of 
rapturous  exclamations — a  letter  made 
up  chiefly  of  underlining  and  exclama 
tion  points  with  an  allusion  to  the 
beautiful  home  she  and  Stephen  were 
planning. 

The  new  use  of  the  old  word  was  an 
unexpected  arrow  in  the  mother's  heart. 
'  *  She  is  planning  a  home  with  him ! ' '  she 
brooded.  "She  has  forgotten  that  she 
has  left  a  home  here.  A  new  home !  A 
new  home!" 

PO 


THE    OLD   NEST 

After  this  her  heart  was  so  benumbed 
and  so  acquainted  with  neglect  that  she 
did  not  resent  the  pitiful  substitutes  for 
letters  that  followed,  the  outrageous 
ready-made  postal  cards  with  photo 
graphs  of  scenes,  and  just  room  enough 
to  crowd  in  a  line,  or  a  hasty  and  usu 
ally  anonymous  phrase:  "Isn't  this 
lovely!  Love  from  both."  "Here  is 
where  we  dined  to-night."  "Wish  you 
were  with  us.  Love."  "Isn't  this 
quaint?  We  are  lunching  on  the  side 
walk!  Love." 

Emily  was  so  hurried  with  the  myriad 
novelties  of  her  first  Paris,  that  several 
days  passed  before  she  remembered 
that  she  had  a  brother  there.  Then  she 
found  that  she  had  forgotten  to  bring 
his  address.  She  must  write  for  it  in 
the  next  letter.  All  she  recalled  was 
that  it  was  TOO  "the  15th  of  September" 
or  the  "31st  of  February"  or  some  date. 
6  81 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Days  passed,  weeks  passed.  One 
Sunday  afternoon  she  and  Stephen 
visited  the  Luxembourg.  They  were 
moving  along  with  elbows  interlocked, 
poring  over  the  catalogue  a  long  while, 
and  then  glancing  briefly  at  a  picture  or 
a  statue.  They  liked  best  the  paintings 
with  a  dramatic  emotion  or  a  story,  pic 
tures  with  a  libretto.  They  had  turned 
away  contemptuously  from  an  epoch- 
making  attempt  to  translate  the  translu- 
cence  of  sunlight  into  opaque  pigment, 
when  Emily's  nails  nipped  Stephen's  el 
bow,  and  she  whispered:  "Look!  I 
do  believe  that  's  my  brother  Frank." 

They  walked  round  the  stranger  as  if 
he  were  a  statue,  while  he  was  studying 
the  Monet  as  if  it  were  a  religious 
text.  A  certain  eccentricity  of  garb 
and  a  quaint  Parisian  experiment  in 
whiskers  on  his  chin  only  partly  dis- 
82 


THE    OLD    NEST 

guised  the  Americanism  of  him.  The 
Anthon  features  were  evident,  and  Em 
ily,  tiptoeing  up  behind  him,  murmured 
over  his  shoulder:  "Bawn  joor,  Fran- 
swa." 

The  man  turned,  stared  at  her  puz- 
zledly  a  moment,  recognized  at  once  that 
she  was  beautiful  and  gradually  that  she 
was  his  sister,  and  promptly  wrapped 
his  arms  about  her  with  a  smack  that 
frightened  two  guardians  into  thinking 
that  the  Mona  Lisa  thief  had  broken  into 
the  Luxembourg.  They  recognized  that 
it  was  simply  a  matter  of  some  artist 
saluting  a  living  masterpiece,  and  tap 
ping  their  noses  with  their  forefingers 
returned  to  their  own  business. 

It  was  Frank's  turn  to  be  struck  by 
one  of  the  pink  thunderbolts  Emily 
usually  wielded. 

"Emily!"  he  cried.  "Well,  what  on 
83 


THE    OLD   NEST 

earth — you  in  Paris'?  Is  mother  with 
you?  How  is  she?  What  you  doing 
here?  How  well  you  're  looking.  I  'm 
proud  to  own  you." 

"Oh,  but  you  don't  own  me  any 
more."  And  she  introduced  her  pro 
prietor.  The  men  shook  hands  with  that 
shyness  savages  feel, — that  delicacy 
which  leads  many  not-so-barbaric  tribes 
to  make  it  a  rule  for  relations-in-law 
never  to  address  or  look  at  one  another. 

Emily  began  a  glib  epic  of  her  ad 
ventures  and  the  three  strolled  blindly 
past  master-works,  talking  of  Emily's 
marvelous  fate.  Frank  checked  them 
before  Whistler's  portrait  of  his  mother. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that?"  he 
asked. 

"Such  a  dear  old  lady!"  said  Emily. 

"Do  you  know  I  rather  like  it,"  said 
Stephen,  as  if  his  opinion  mattered. 
"It  isn't  good  art,  of  course,  because 
84 


THE    OLD    NEST 

it  's  so  very  simple  and  it  is  n't  fussy  at 
all.     I  bet  he  finished  it  in  one  sitting." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  painted  it  out 
a  hundred  times,"  said  Frank. 

"How  tired  his  poor  mother  must 
have  grown,"  said  Emily.  "It  seems 
rather  cruel  to  have  kept  the  poor  old 
lady  up." 

"Cruel?"  Frank  exclaimed,  "to  make 
an  immortal  portrait  of  your  mother! 
Do  you  suppose  she  was  n't  blissfully 
happy  and  proud  to  think  her  son  cared 
to  devote  his  best  art  and  his  tireless 
labor  to  showing  the  rest  of  the  world 
just  how  she  looked,  his  mother?  If  I 
could  only  paint  our  mother,  and  spread 
on  canvas  her  poor,  tired,  sweet  face 
and  her  blessed  folded  hands  and  the 
tender  mood  of  her  soul, — I  wouldn't 
ask  any  more." 

"Why  don't  you  try?"  Emily  sug 
gested  brilliantly. 

85 


THE    OLD    NEST 

"I  've  tried  numberless  times,  but  I 
can't  come  anywhere  near  a  likeness. 
There  's  no  photograph  of  her  taken  for 
the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years.  She 
was  always  camera-shy.  And  I  can't 
seem  to  get  anything  like  a  resem 
blance.  ' ' 

"I  should  think  a  man  could  hardly 
help  that,"  said  Stephen. 

"If  you  were  a  painter,  you  'd  under 
stand,"  said  Frank.  "You  'd  recognize 
your  own  mother  at  a  glance  among  a 
million  women,  wouldn't  you?" 

"Among  all  the  other  angels  in 
heaven,"  Stephen  murmured. 

"Describe  her  features  to  me,"  Frank 
challenged. 

"Well,  she  was  a  wonderfully  sweet 
little  woman  with  gray  hair  and  a  won 
derfully  tender  voice." 

"We  can't  paint  the  voice.  Describe 
her  features." 

86 


THE    OLD    NEST 

'  *  Well,  her  face  was  n  't  exactly  beau 
tiful  any  more,  and  yet  it  was — very 
beautiful.  She  had  er — her  eyes  were 
— er— " 

"Yes,  her  eyes  were — " 

' '  Well,  they  were  dark. ' ' 

"Black?" 

"No,  not  exactly  black." 

"Brown?" 

"Well,  I  shouldn't  exactly  call  them 
brown  either." 

"Blue?" 

"No,  not  blue — exactly.  No,  not  blue 
at  all,  yet  something  on  the  blue  order 
with  a  suggestion  of  deep  brown  and — 
well,  I  can't  say  exactly." 

"And  her  nose?" 

"Her  nose  was — was — how  can  I  de 
scribe  a  nose  exactly?" 

"I  've  got  to  paint  it  exactly.  Was  it 
large  or  small?" 

"Neither." 

87 


THE    OLD   NEST 

"Aquiline,  Grecian,  thick,  thin,  long, 
short?" 

"I  give  up.  I  can  see  her  perfectly 
till  you  tell  me  to  describe  her,  then  she 
sort  of — er — vanishes.  It  's  a  shameful 
thing  to  confess,  but — " 

"Every  man  is  like  that.  And  I  'm 
like  that  when  I  try  to  paint  my  mother. 
I  Ve  a  great  longing  to  save  that  blessed 
face  from  oblivion,  but  I  '11  never  be 
able  to  till  I  see  her." 

"Oh,  how  glorious!"  said  Emily. 
"  Do  go  home  and  visit  her  this  minute. ' ' 

"I  can't  quite  do  that.  It  takes  so 
long,  and  I  have  a  big  mural  painting 
I  Ve  contracted  to  finish,  and — oh,  it 's 
quite  impossible  for  me  to  leave.  But  if 
mother  could  come  over  here— 

"Splendid!"  cried  Emily.  "We'll 
just  make  her  come !  She  's  never  been 
abroad,  and  the  ocean  trip  would  do  her 
worlds  of  good,  and  she  'd  simply  dote 


THE    OLD   NEST 

on  Paris.  I  '11  write  her  and  tell  her 
she  just  must  come  this  very  minute. ' ' 

The  upshot  of  this  parley  was  that 
Mrs.  Anthon  received  a  letter  with  a 
French  stamp,  the  first  letter  from  her 
son  in  what  seemed  a  whole  forever. 
Along  with  it  came  a  gurglingly  happy 
letter  from  the  runaway  child,  urging  her 
mother  to  put  on  her  bonnet  and  her 
mits,  and  her  father  to  pick  up  his  silk 
hat  and  his  medicine  bag,  and  step 
right  over  to  see  them  in  their  new 
home;  they  really  must  not  postpone 
learning  the  unequaled  charms  and 
beauties  of  Paris  and  Stephen,  espe 
cially  Stephen. 

The  old  couple  read  the  two  letters 
and  stared  at  each  other  in  stupor, 
and  each  said:  "You  'd  better  go.  I 
can't." 

The  doctor  shook  his  head  with  final 
ity.  He  had  come  to  feel  that  if  he  left 
89 


THE    OLD   NEST 

Carthage  for  a  day,  the  whole  town 
would  perish  in  helpless  agony.  It  was 
manifestly  impossible  that  he  should 
ever  have  a  vacation  till  his  last  one. 
The  thought  of  being  left  alone  by  his 
wife  for  a  protracted  period  appalled 
him,  but  he  tried  to  look  overjoyed  and 
he  insisted  that  of  all  things  on  earth 
what  he  most  wanted  was  a  portrait  of 
his  wife.  To  have  it  painted  by  their 
famous  son  was  beyond  his  dreams. 

But  Mrs.  Anthon  declined  to  be  lured. 

"Me  leave  you  here  all  by  yourself 
for  Goodness  knows  how  long!"  she 
sniffed.  "Me  ride  all  that  ways  on  a 
train  and  spend  a  week  alone  on  a  wab 
bly  boat  and  then  go  trapesing  round 
amongst  a  lot  of  foreigners!  Why,  I 
can  hardly  go  down  town  and  do  my 
marketing  in  Carthage  without  getting 
run  over  by  a  delivery  wagon.  Can  you 
see  me  in  France?  I  'd  be  sick  and  get 
90 


THE    OLD    NEST 

lost  and  never  be  heard  of  again.  May 
be  that 's  what  you  're  working  for." 
* '  It  's  your  portrait  I  want. ' ' 
"My  portrait!  Do  you  suppose  I 
want  anybody  ever  to  know  what  I  look 
like?  I  quit  having  my  pictures  taken 
ages  ago.  Don't  imagine  I  'm  going  to 
cross  the  sea  to  have  one  done  now — 
and  in  colors,  too !  And  the  very  idea 
of  that  dear  child  Frank  wasting  his 
time  and  his  genius  trying  to  paint  a 
homely  old  crone  like  me,  when  he  could 
be  painting  something  pretty.  I  'm  too 
weak  and  old  even  to  pack  up  my  things. 
I  'd  never  get  there.  I  'm  weak  and 
afraid.  I  'm  a  tired-out  old  woman, — 
and  besides,  I  have  nothing  to  wear." 

This  last  sounded  familiar  to  the 
doctor.  "Good  Lord!"  he  growled. 
"Nothing  to  wear!  I  bet  that  when 
Judgment  Day  comes  round,  and  Ga 
briel  blows  his  horn,  you  '11  reach  over 
91 


THE    OLD    NEST 

into  my  grave  and  wake  me  up  and  say, 
'Time  to  get  up,  Paw;  you  're  wanted'; 
and  I  '11  jump  up  and  reach  for  my 
trousers  and  medicine  case,  and  you  '11 
say,  'No,  this  time  you  're  wanted  in 
Heaven';  and  I  '11  say,  'Well,  come 
along';  and  you  '11  say,  'Merciful  Good 
ness,  I  can't  be  seen  by  all  those  angels 
in  these  old  clothes.  I  can't  go  to 
Heaven,  I  have  nothing  to  wear.' 

They  talked  the  matter  over,  each 
urging  the  other  to  the  luxury  of  a  for 
eign  trip,  and  each  dreading  the  idea  of 
travel  as  much  as  a  deep-rooted  tree 
would  fear  it.  At  the  last  the  doctor 
growled:  "If  any  visiting  is  done,  I 
guess  it  's  the  children's  place  to  take 
the  trip.  If  they  walked  home,  it 
wouldn't  be  as  far  as  you  've  walked, 
carrying  them  in  your  arms  and  run 
ning  on  their  errands.  I  guess  you  're 
92 


THE    OLD   NEST 

right,  Mother.    Here  we  are,  and  here 
we  'd  better  stay,  until— 

But  there  was  no  need  of  mentioning 
by  name  the  great,  the  dark  Until. 


93 


II 

THE  summer  brooded  over  Carthage 
long  and  heavily.  The  sky  was 
like  the  lid  of  a  chafing-dish,  the  earth 
like  the  pan  thereof,  and  people  sim 
mered  between  in  their  own  fat. 

"The  climate  of  Carthage,"  the  doc 
tor  used  to  say,  "  averages  up  to  just 
about  perfect.  It  's  the  coldest  place 
under  Heaven  in  winter,  and  in  the  sum 
mer  it  's  the  hottest  place  this  side  of — 
the  Other  Place." 

Mrs.  Anthon  somehow  gasped  through 
the  stinging  days  and  the  suffocating 
nights.  Then  autumn  came,  with  its 
savory,  fruitful  airs,  its  first  frost,  and 
its  repentant  Indian  summer.  But 
94 


THE    OLD    NEST 

there  is  no  Indian  summer  for  weary 
old  mothers,  and  the  incessant  lapse  of 
leaves  too  weak  to  cling  to  the  branches 
filled  her  with  a  deep  dread. 

Then  the  winter  fell  upon  the  town 
and  froze  it  till  it  rang,  and  having 
chilled  it  through  and  through,  kept  it 
close  muffled  in  snow. 

No  child  came  home;  rarely  did  one 
write,  and  then  briefly.  What  notes 
were  sent  breathed  affection  and  devo 
tion,  but  they  were  poor  substitutes  for 
the  visible,  tangible,  kissable,  talkable 
children,  of  whom  she  possessed  now 
only  the  photographs  staring  from  wall 
and  mantel.  They  might  as  well  have 
been  relics  of  dead  children. 

She  devoted  much  toil  and  all  her 
money  to  Christmas  presents.  She  re 
membered  all  of  the  children,  though 
she  had  little  cash  to  spare.  She  made 
95 


THE    OLD    NEST 

many  presents  with  her  own  hands,  and 
had  learned  well  what  would  please  each 
of  them. 

Their  presents  to  her  were  spasmodic, 
usually  late  in  arriving,  and  always  ac 
companied  with  apologies  for  being  a 
trifle  homely.  Other  people  required 
such  pretentious  gifts.  Mothers  must 
take  the  will  for  the  donation. 

Shortly  after  the  New  Year  had 
erected  one  more  milestone  on  the  down 
ward  slope,  there  was  a  mighty  flurry  in 
the  house.  One  of  the  children  actually 
announced  a  visit.  It  was  Jim. 

Now  Jim  was  Dr.  Anthon's  inconsol 
able  grief.  He  had  chosen  to  be  a  phy 
sician,  and  the  old  doctor's  heart  had  re 
joiced  to  think  that  he  should  be  able 
to  take  into  partnership  with  him  one 
of  his  own  sons,  a  close-kinned  soul 
whom  he  could  train  to  the  needs  and 
whims  of  staple  patients  of  lifelong 
96 


THE    OLD    NEST 

standing,  a  son  to  whom  he  could  whis 
per  the  pitiful  and  dreadful  secrets  a 
physician  acquires. 

The  doctor  had  cheerfully  encouraged 
Jim  to  spend  years  and  years  and  years 
acquiring  his  education,  in  the  knowl 
edge  that  when  the  boy  was  ready,  he 
could  settle  down  at  home,  live  with  the 
family,  and  enter  at  once  into  a  practice 
that  would  save  him  from  the  prelimi 
nary  starvation-plus-idleness  test  of  a 
young  doctor's  nerves.  But  American 
children  do  not  often  accept  their  fath 
er's  harness,  nor  willingly  occupy  ad 
joining  stalls.  James  Anthon,  M.D., 
just  returned  from  Vienna,  found  Car 
thage  a  world  he  disdained  to  conquer. 
He  moved  out  to  Denver,  and  permitted 
his  father  to  support  him  through  a  pro 
longed  starvation  period  there.  And 
then,  as  usual,  when  patients  began  to 
ring  his  bell  intentionally,  and  he  had 
?  97 


THE    OLD    NEST 

begun  to  take  in  enough  to  have  begun 
to  pay  back  what  he  had  borrowed,  he 
fell  a  victim  to  an  epidemic  to  which 
even  doctors  are  not  immune. 

He  sent  home  her  photograph  instead 
of  an  instalment  on  account,  and  elo 
quently  explained  that,  having  taken 
unto  himself  a  wife,  he  must  really  bor 
row  a  little  more.  And  now  the  doctor 
had  an  added  absentee  to  support. 
How  they  ever  manage  it,  these  small 
town  parents  maintaining  expensive  off 
spring  in  remote  cities,  is  akin  to  the 
miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes. 

But  Jim  prospered.  Now  and  then 
he  sent  home  a  little  money,  offener  a 
large  promise,  and  the  old  doctor  got 
what  joy  he  could  out  of  both.  That  old 
doctor  could  have  found  a  little  sunlight 
in  a  third  subcellar  on  a  winter  mid 
night.  Jim  became  a  specialist — none 
of  your  all-round  family  upholsterers 
98 


THE    OLD   NEST 

like  his  father.  He  devoted  his  life  to 
the  ear  exclusively,  and  he  wrote  his 
father  that  if  he  had  been  able  to  confine 
himself  to  the  right  ear  or  the  left,  in 
stead  of  having  to  generalize  on  both,  he 
might  really  have  accomplished  some 
thing. 

It  was  this  Jim  that  telegraphed,  this 
extraordinarily  famous  aurist,  whose 
name  was  ringing  in  all  deaf  people's 
ears.  Jim  sent  word  that  he  was  com 
ing  home.  It  was  not  to  stay,  not  even 
for  a  visit,  but  for  a  stop-off.  A  big 
convention  of  all  the  aural  aurochs  in 
the  world  was  to  be  held  in  Chicago  to 
look  into  the  ears  of  the  nation.  Jim 
was  to  read  a  paper  on  a  minute  sub 
section  of  one  of  the  premonitory  symp 
toms  of  titinnitus  aurum,  or  bells  in  the 
belfry.  On  his  way  to  Chicago,  he  pur 
posed  to  drop  off  the  train,  and  spend  a 
day  or  three  in  his  dear  old  home.  His 
99 


THE    OLD    NEST 

wife  and  children  would  not  be  able  to 
come  with  him,  he  said,  as  the  children 
all  had  the  earache. 

Two  or  three  days'  visit  after  six  or 
eight  years'  absence  was  a  small  pay 
ment  on  the  debt  he  owed,  but  if  he  had 
shot  by  on  an  aeroplane,  his  mother 
would  have  taken  it  as  a  blessed  tribute 
of  affection. 

She  sent  for  the  old  darky,  and  rat 
tled  the  telegram  before  him. 

"You  're  a  prophet,  Uncle  Ned. 
You  're  a  prophet.  Go  get  that  table- 
leaf  up  from  the  cellar  at  once. ' ' 

Uncle  Ned  shouted  and  wheezed  with 
pride,  and  circumambulated  his  way  to 
and  from  the  cellar,  helped  pull  the 
groaning  table  apart,  and  restore  the 
leaf  to  its  ancient  resting-place. 

Mrs.  Anthon  would  not  tell  him  who 
was  coming,  except  that  it  was  not  Miss 
Emily,  nor  Miss  Kate,  nor  Master 
100 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Frankie,  nor  Master  Tommy.  As  that 
left  only  Master  Jamie,  he  guessed 
Jamie ;  but  she  refused  to  tell  him.  He 
must  wait  and  see. 

The  day  of  the  visit  came.  The  table 
was  bedecked,  Jim's  chair  brought  in 
from  the  Siberia  of  the  attic,  and  the  best 
dinner  Hannah  could  spoil  was  ordered. 
But  no  Jim.  The  next  day  no  Jim. 
The  next  day  a  telegram.  He  had  been 
detained  by  important  consultations  so 
late  that  he  had  barely  time  to  make 
Chicago.  He  had  arranged  to  pay  his 
visit  on  his  way  back.  Nothing  should 
prevent  him.  The  leaf  remained  in  the 
table  on  probation. 

Mrs.  Anthon  heard  Uncle  Ned  mutter 
ing  to  Hannah  that  his  bones  told  him 
something.  He  would  not  say  what  it 
was,  but  he  believed  in  his  bones,  be- 
because  his  bones  had  never  fooled  him 
yet. 

101 


THE    OLD   NEST 

The  Anthons  searched  the  Chicago 
journals,  and  they  found  a  brief  allu 
sion  to  the  fact  that  among  other  papers 
read  at  the  convention  were  those  of 
Doctors  Braley,  Wetmore,  Author,  Ser 
geant,  Tenniel,  etc.  Their  wonderful 
son  was  evidently  the  man  in  the  typo 
graphical  disguise.  The  injustice  and 
inaccuracy  of  the  press  was  loudly 
denounced  in  at  least  one  home  that 
week. 

Two  days  passed,  and  Jim  failed  to 
appear.  Then  a  telegram  came.  This 
also  was  from  Denver  and  from  Jim. 
But  Mrs.  Anthon  did  not  rattle  it  before 
Uncle  Ned.  If  there  was  any  rattle,  it 
was  a  dry  something  in  her  heart.  Jim 
had  been  called  back  to  Denver  by  a 
vitally  important  consultation,  and  had 
had  to  leave  the  convention  immediately 
after  reading  his  paper,  which  had  been 
received  with  dignified  silence,  showing 
102 


THE    OLD   NEST 

what  a  profound  impression  it  had  pro 
duced. 

Mrs.  Anthon  sent  for  Uncle  Ned,  and 
with  Hannah's  aid  they  wrenched  the 
table  ajar  again,  took  away  the  leaf,  and 
closed  the  boards  like  a  coffin.  Uncle 
Ned's  feet  clumped  down  the  cellar 
stairs  with  the  leaf  bumping  after. 

And  Mrs.  Anthon  looked  bewilderedly 
about  the  dining-room,  and  made  a  sud 
den  hurried  rush  to  the  stairs.  She 
hobbled  up  them  slowly,  shaking  her 
head,  while  Hannah,  clinging  to  the 
banister-post,  kept  calling  up  after  her: 

"You  mustn't  cry  like  that,  Miss' 
Anthon.  Shan't  I  make  you  some  nice 
tea?" 


103 


Ill 

BETWEEN  Tom  Anthon,  tilting  per 
ilously  backward  in  bis  swivel- 
chair,  and  the  client,  explaining  eagerly 
forward  across  the  leaf  of  the  desk,  an 
office  boy  interpolated  a  sheaf  of  letters. 

The  lawyer  riffled  them  carelessly. 
They  were  all  typewritten  and  had  all 
been  opened  by  a  secretary  except  one 
in  an  unofficial  envelope,  addressed  in 
an  unmasculine  hand  and  marked  "  Per 
sonal."  This  letter  halted  the  lawyer's 
eyes  an  instant  and  his  frown  of  intense 
attention  was  mellowed  by  a  hint  of 
lenity. 

Neither  the  sex  of  the  handwriting 
nor  its  effect  on  the  lawyer  escaped  the 
client,  whose  very  gesture  had  been 
104 


THE    OLD   NEST 

frozen  in  midair  by  the  arrival  of  the 
letters.  He  ventured  a  careless  imper 
tinence. 

"A  letter  from  a  lady!"  He  said  it 
as  one  might  murmur,  "Aha!" 

The  lawyer  flicked  him  with  a  glance 
like  the  snap  of  a  whip ;  then,  as  a  gen 
tler  rebuke,  he  held  out  the  envelope  for 
inspection.  The  client  realized  a  cer 
tain  dignity  in  the  writing  and  stam 
mered  : 

"An  old-fashioned  hand,  isn't  it? 
Nice  old  lady  client,  eh?" 

"My  mother." 

The  soft,  soft  word  seemed  an  evoca 
tion;  and  the  spirit  of  the  room  was 
changed  instantly,  as  if  a  venerable 
woman  had  entered  it  by  mistake. 
The  client  felt  almost  an  impulse  to 
rise  and  bow.  He  contented  himself 
with: 

"Lucky  man,  to  be  getting  letters 
105 


THE    OLD    NEST 

from  your  mother  at  your  age!  Mine 
died  when  I  was  a  child." 

The  lawyer  pressed  his  advantage 
with  a  youthful  brag : 

"My  father  is  living,  too." 

The  client's  shaken  head  implied  both 
elegy  and  envy. 

"No  wonder  they  call  you  'Lucky  An- 
thon.'  You  must  take  great  comfort  in 
them." 

The  lawyer  flushed  like  a  witness  un 
der  a  fire  of  cross-examination. 

"I  ought  to.  I  do,  of  course.  But 
I  'm  so  infernally  busy  protecting  you 
malefactors  of  great  wealth  that  I — well, 
you  see,  they  live  so  far  away.  They 
don't  like  New  York.  They  hate  to 
travel.  Father  's  a  doctor — he  's  afraid 
to  leave  his  patients  for  five  min 
utes.  I  haven't  had  time  to  get  back 
home  for  years.  About  all  I  do  is  to 
send  them  presents  on  Christmases  and 
106 


THE    OLD   NEST 

on  their  birthdays — when  I  don't  forget. 
"When  is  my  mother's  next  birthday!  I 
must  look  it  up." 

He  jotted  a  query  on  the  slant  of  his 
calendar  and  put  the  letter  in  his  pocket, 
patting  it  first  as  if  it  were  her  hand. 
Then  he  resumed  his  office  face  and 
voice:  "As  you  were  saying — ' 

The  client  forgot  his  own  business  for 
the  luxury  of  reproach: 

"A  memorandum  to  look  up  your 
mother's  birthday!  You  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourself." 

"lam." 

"Why,  if  either  of  my  parents  were 
living — " 

"Oh,  no,  you  wouldn't.  You  think 
you  would,  but  you  would  n  't.  My  let 
ters  home  begin  with  apologies  for  neg 
lect  and  end  with  vows  to  reform;  but 
this  deadly  grind,  this  eternal  scram 
ble—" 

107 


THE    OLD    NEST 

The  telephone  bell  broke  in:  ''Long 
distance  wants  you."  Lucky  Anthon 
had  a  brief  chat  with  another  lawyer 
seated  in  a  swivel-chair  a  thousand  miles 
away.  He  bade  the  astral  visitor  hold 
the  wire,  while  he  took  up  a  second  tele 
phone  on  his  desk  and  pursued  a  New 
York  client  all  over  town  until  he 
brought  him  to  earth  at  an  automobile 
road-inn,  forty  miles  off.  A  hurried 
consultation  in  telephonese  with  this 
man;  a  bit  of  triangular  converse  from 
mouthpiece  to  mouthpiece,  and  Anthon 
had  arranged  a  journey  to  Boston  on 
"the  midnight." 

Then  he  turned  to  the  client  at  his 
desk  side  and  resumed  the  discussion  of 
an  abstruse  problem  in  higher  legal 
strategy,  incessantly  interrupted  by  the 
nagging  telephone,  by  telegrams,  par 
don-begging  clerks,  excuse-me-one-mo- 
ment  partners,  stenographers  summoned 
108 


THE    OLD   NEST 

to  take  dictations,  bookkeepers  to  look 
up  figures,  and  what-not,  whom-not. 

Tom  Anthon's  brain  had  subdivided 
itself  into  a  syndicate  of  workers  and  his 
mind  was  like  a  telephone  exchange.  In 
such  a  maelstrom  how  could  his  moth 
er's  letter  fail  to  be  swept  out  of  his 
mind? 

When  he  left  for  the  afternoon  it  was 
to  dash  to  a  conference;  when  he  rode 
uptown  it  was  in  the  limousine  office  of  a 
railroad  juggler.  His  dinner  at  the  club 
was  a  mere  automatic  process  while  his 
mind  was  busy  matching  wits  with  one 
of  the  lawyers  of  one  of  his  multitudi 
nous  adversaries.  He  had  planned  to 
go  to  the  theater  or  the  opera  for  relaxa 
tion,  but  he  was  shunted  on  toward  mid 
night  by  a  dozen  matters  and  people  that 
could  not  wait. 

He  just  made  the  train  and  crawling 
into  his  berth  declared  his  office  hours 
109 


THE    OLD   NEST 

ended.  He  shut  his  brain  to  thought  as 
if  his  skull  were  a  roll-top  desk  and  he 
were  pulling  down  and  locking  his  fore 
head.  This  was  his  salvation — that  he 
could  usually  adjourn  his  mental  con 
gress  when  he  reached  his  bed — usually, 
but  not  always. 

The  next  morning  he  thought  of  his 
mother's  letter  as  he  filled  his  eyes  with 
soap  in  the  primeval  conditions  of  the 
sleeping-car's  washroom.  At  breakfast 
he  thought  of  it  again.  He  could  not 
find  it  in  his  pocket.  He  remembered 
that  he  had  hastily  changed  suits  before 
he  took  the  train.  He  resolved  to  read 
it  as  soon  as  he  got  back.  He  made  a 
memorandum  to  that  effect — and  blushed 
at  the  necessity;  but  the  memorandum, 
as  timid  and  meek  as  the  letter  itself  or 
its  author,  seemed  unable  to  assert  its 
rights.  There  was  need  of  a  memoran 
dum  to  recall  the  memorandum. 
110 


THE    OLD    NEST 

Anthon  thought  of  the  letter  in  court 
rooms,  at  board  meetings  and  in  flying 
taxicabs.  It  floated  through  his  mind 
at  the  oddest  moments;  but  it  always 
came  inopportunely  and  was  frightened 
away. 

A  week  had  passed  before  he  put  on 
the  same  coat  again.  He  found  the  let 
ter  by  chance  in  the  pocket  where  it  had 
lain  in  cold  storage.  He  apologized  to 
it  and  caressed  it  again.  As  a  final 
atonement  he  gave  it  precedence  over 
the  morning  papers.  He  propped  it 
against  the  news-sheet  propped  against 
the  water  bottle  and  he  kept  his  eyes  on 
it.  Though  the  headlines  above  it  bran 
dished  black  flags  of  battle,  murder  and 
court  decisions,  he  kept  his  eyes  on  the 
thin  little  scrawling  lines  crisscrossing 
the  paper.  The  writing  was  shaky  and 
so  frail  that  the  very  ink  seemed  gray. 

"My  darling  boy,"  it  began,  and  he 
111 


THE    OLD   NEST 

looked  past  it  into  a  mirror — which  an 
swered  with  a  mirror's  repartee.  His 
mother's  darling  boy  had  been  a  man 
for  years  and  years,  had  been  married 
and  widowered.  Other  marriages  had 
orphaned  him  of  his  children  and  his 
hair  was  sketched  with  gray  lines. 

He  tried  to  recall  the  fat-cheeked, 
curl-scrolled  face  that  had  once  pouted 
back  at  him  from  looking-glasses;  but 
this  long-distance  telescopy  was  too 
much  for  him.  He  remembered  how 
that  remote  self  had  depended  on  the 
writer  of  this  letter — depended  on  her 
utterly  for  everything,  from  buttoning 
up  of  mornings  to  tucking  in  of  nights. 
And  now  he  was  here,  a  scarred  gladia 
tor  in  the  arena.  He  had  traveled  far, 
changed  much. 


112 


IV 

HE  felt  the  swift  wing-brush  of  a 
wish  to  run  home  and  climb  into 
his  mother's  lap.  The  very  thought  rid 
iculed  itself  to  death.  The  picture  of  his 
huge,  lank  figure  sprawled  across  the 
knees  of  the  dismayed  and  venerable  lit 
tle  woman  who  was  his  mother  made  an 
intolerable  grotesque. 

But  the  letter — a  long  one  for  her : 

My  Darling  Boy: 

Now  that  I  am  able  to  sit  up  again,  I  am  writ 
ing  to  you  first  off.  I  do  hope  you  haven't  wor 
ried  and  fretted  over  me  these  past  four  weeks.  I 
had  been  feeling  right  poorly  for  some  time  and 
then  one  morning  I  could  n't  get  up.  I  told  your 
father  and  he  was  all  upset.  You  know  he  never 
would  treat  any  of  his  own  family.  He  looked 
right  worried  and  called  for  Doctor  Pusey  to  come 
over.  Doctor  Pusey  said  I  should  stay  in  bed  and 
8  113 


THE    OLD    NEST 

take  care  of  myself  or  I  'd  be  down  sick.  It 's  a 
good  thing  I  did,  for  I  might  have  been  real  sick. 
I  was  in  bed  for  a  month  as  it  was,  scarcely  able 
to  lift  my  head  and  suffering  considerable  pain. 

I  thought  I  'd  best  not  write  you  children,  be 
cause  it  would  just  worry  you  and  you  all  have  so 
many  things  to  worry  you  without  fretting  your 
self  over  my  ailments.  I  was  real  sick,  though, 
and  your  father  was  going  to  telegraph  to  Chicago 
for  some  of  the  big  doctors ;  but  I  would  n't  let 
him.  He  was  right  rundown  himself,  what  with 
sitting  up  nights  with  me,  and  an  epidemic  of 
measles  in  the  public  school. 

Anthon's  face  was  a  craven  plea  of 
guilty.  His  mother  had  been  ill,  per 
haps  near  death.  She  had  lain  abed  for 
a  month  without  a  line  from  him.  Yet 
it  was  she  that  apologized  for  not  having 
written!  Anthon  cursed  himself  for  an 
ingrate  and  read  on : 

A  day  or  two  ago  I  took  a  turn  for  the  better. 
I  'm  just  about  what  you  'd  call  well  now.  Yester 
day  I  was  able  to  sit  up  in  my  rocker  for  quite  a 
spell  and  it  did  n't  tire  me  much.  And  to-day  I  'm 
so  much  better  I  had  Hannah  bring  me  some  note- 
114 


THE    OLD    NEST 

paper  and  set  the  ink  bottle  on  the  sewing  machine 
close  by,  and  get  me  a  book  to  write  on.  And  what 
book  do  you  suppose  she  brought  me?  It  was 
your  old  geography,  honey.  I  've  been  looking 
through  it;  and  your  name  is  written  in  the  front 
as  bold  as  a  lion's  and  you  'd  marked  the  book  all 
up,  lining  the  pictures  round  with  a  lead  pencil  and 
coloring  some  of  them  with  crayons.  I  used  to 
think  you  would  be  the  artist  when  you  grew  up, 
instead  of  Frankie.  Have  you  heard  anything 
from  him  or  Emily  and  how  they  're  getting  along 
in  Paris.  The  poor  things  are  so  busy  I  can't  ex 
pect  them  to  write.  But  I  'd  like  to  know  if 
they  're  well.  Emily  is  so  careless  about  wrapping 
up.  Is  Kate  well?  Do  you  ever  see  her? 

But  I  was  starting  to  write  you  about  your 
geography  book.  It 's  just  like  me  to  wander. 
I  remember  how  proud  I  was  of  you — almost  as 
proud  as  I  am  now  of  the  famous  lawyer  that  folks 
tell  me  is  my  son ! 

Seems  like  it  was  only  yesterday  you  were  bring 
ing  the  book  to  me  to  pronounce  the  hard  words. 
You  used  to  follow  me  all  over  the  house  or  call 
to  me  from  upstairs :  "Mama !  say,  mama,  what 's 
the  pronoun sation  of" — whatever  it  was. 

While  I  looked  over  the  pages  and  saw  the  ter 
rible  words  they  gave  you  poor  little  chicks  to 
memorize,  I  gave  a  kind  of  jump.  I  thought  I 
heard  you  calling  me — as  you  did  once :  "  Say, 
115 


-THE    OLD    NEST 

mama,  what 's  the  kreck  pronounsation  of  B-e- 
1-u-c-h-i-s-t-a-n  ?"  And  when  I  told  you,  you  said : 
"Who  was  Bellew  and  why  did  he  kiss  her?"  I 
could  hear  it  just  as  plain  as  if  you  had  been  right 
by;  and  I  listened  to  hear  your  little  feet  on  the 
stairs,  or  to  hear  the  banister  whistle  as  you  came 
sliding  down  to  show  me  the  word. 

And  then  I  lost  sight  of  the  book  and  all,  and  a 
couple  of  tears  came  spattering  down  on  the  geog 
raphy.  I  've  been  right  poorly,  you  know,  and 
kind  of  weak  still;  and  my  eyes  always  had  a  sort 
of  trick  of  tearing  up  when  I  think  of  you  chil 
dren. 

I  thought,  instead  of  sitting  here  making  a  baby 
of  myself  over  my  boy's  old  schoolbooks,  I  'd  best 
be  writing  you  a  few  lines  to  keep  you  from  wor 
rying  about  me.  You  really  must  n't  think  any 
thing  of  my  being  sick,  for  I  '11  be  able  to  go  down 
to  breakfast  most  likely  to-morrow,  or  to  dinner, 
the  doctor  says ;  so  you  can  see  I  'in  all  right. 

It 's  nice  to  be  able  to  sit  here  in  the  bay  window 
and  look  out  in  the  yard  where  you  children  used 
to  romp.  It 's  terrible  quiet  now,  specially  with 
the  snow  still  lingering  on  in  spots;  but  I  guess  it 
won't  be  much  longer.  Your  father  says  he  thinks 
the  winter's  back  is  about  broke  by  now.  Soon  the 
spring  thaws  will  set  in  and  the  trees  will  be  bud 
ding  out ;  and  before  long  the  birds  will  be  settled 
down  once  more.  It 's  nearly  a  year,  and  it  seems 
ten  now  since  Emily  went  to  New  York  and  never 
116 


THE    OLD    NEST 

came  home.  Poor  child,  I  wonder  if  her  husband 
is  still  good  to  her  and  if  the  spring  is  nice  in 
Paris  like  it  is  here. 

How  you  children  used  to  love  the  first  sight  of 
spring,  and  how  you  used  to  come  stampeding  in, 
all  covered  with  mud  and  yelling  like  Comantchies 
— or  however  you  spell  it ;  anyway,  you  'd  sing  out, 
"How  long  before  dinner 's  ready?  I  'm  hungry !" 
One  after  another  you  'd  storm  in  and  houl,  "I  'm 
hungry !"  and  then  one  after  another  you  grew  up 
and  went  away;  and  now  it's  my  turn  to  be  hun 
gry — hungry  for  my  children;  hungry  all  the  time! 

About  the  only  thing  I  can  do  nowadays  is  just 
to  sit  round  and  remember.  Of  course  I  'm  aw 
fully  proud  of  every  one  of  my  chicks  and  so 
grateful  for  your  success,  but  it 's  a  terrible  thing 
to  have  you  all  so  far  away.  This  old  house  used 
to  be  so  crowded  and  so  noisy  I  had  to  hold  my 
head  to  keep  it  from  splitting;  and  now  the  house 
is  so  empty  and  so  silent  I  have  to  hold  my  heart 
to  keep  it  from  breaking  open. 

Sometimes  the  house  seems  haunted — all  full  of 
ghosts,  little  ghosts,  calling  to  me.  Sometimes  at 
night  I  sit  up  in  bed,  thinking  I  hear  one  of  you 
calling — and  before  I  'm  awake  I  answer,  "Yes, 
honey,"  and  the  room  is  full  of  light.  And  then 
I  'm  awake — and  there  's  no  child — and  it 's  all 
dark. 

Last  night  I  heard  you  scream  in  pain — you  were 
so  frightened,  and  you  were  being  chased  by  a  big 
117 


THE    OLD   NEST 

frothy-mouthed  dog  and  I  was  running  to  help  you. 
I  reached  you  and  took  you  in  my  arms  and  put 
you  behind  me.  I  was  going  to  grab  the  dog  and 
hold  him  till  you  got  away.  Then  I  woke  up — 
and  it  was  the  whistle  of  that  train  that  goes 
through  here  at  four  o'clock  every  morning. 

I  was  trembling  so  I  could  hardly  make  myself 
believe  that  I  was  in  bed  and  that  you  were  a 
grown-up  man  two  thousand  miles  away.  I  was 
glad  it  was  a  dream;  and  yet  I  was  sorry,  too, 
for  after  all  I  had  held  Little  Boy  You  in  my 
arms — and  they  were  aching  empty  for  you. 

Of  course  I  don't  believe  in  dreams,  unless  it  is 
that  they  go  by  contraries.  Still,  I  hope  you 
have  n't  been  in  any  trouble — have  you  ?  Let  me 
know — won't  you?  Dreams  are  so  real.  And  I 
always  know  that  after  that  train  whistles  there's 
a  whole  black  hour  before  daybreak.  In  the  win 
ter  it 's  longer  yet  and  so  cold  and  white  when  the 
day  comes. 

My  mind  is  really  cheerfuller  than  this  letter 
sounds.  Mostly  I  remember  the  pleasant  things 
about  your  childhood  in  this  old  house.  And  it's 
funny  how  often  I  hear  you  shout,  "Mama, 
what 's  the  kreck  pronounsation  of  B-e-1-u-c-h-i-s- 
t-a-n?"  You  howled  every  letter  down  the  stair 
way  and  I  called  back  the  right  way  to  say  it; 
and  you  said :  "  "Who  was  Bel  lew  and  why  did  he 
kiss  her?" 

118 


THE    OLD    NEST 

I  remember  I  told  your  father  about  it  when  he 
came  home  that  day ;  and  he  laughed  till  the  neigh 
bors  must  have  thought  he  had  a  fit.  And  I 
could  n't  tell  you  how  often  we  've  told  each  other 
that  stpry — that  one  and  the  one  about  Frank  say 
ing  he  was  hurt  so  bad  he  ought  to  have  a  dollar. 
We  always  laugh ;  and  then  we  say :  "  Those  were 
mighty  smart  children  of  ours.  Too  bad  they  had 
to  grow  up !" 

Back  of  all  this  pen-prattle,  Lucky 
Anthon  felt  grim  tragedy.  To  him  his 
mother  was  such  a  figure  as  King  Lear 
deserted  by  his  children. 

And  the  vision  of  the  wild  old  monarch 
on  the  cliff  roaring  at  fate  through  his 
wind-blown  beard  was  no  more  epic  to 
him  than  the  mirage  of  the  lorn  little 
mother  in  her  rocking-chair,  just  sitting 
round  and  remembering  her  far-off 
grownups  back  into  babyhood. 

Anthon  did  not  for  a  moment  realize 
how  common,  how  innumerably  ancient, 
how  inevitably  future  a  type  it  is — this 
119 


THE    OLD    NEST 

mother  left  at  home  by  the  brood  issued 
from  her  loins  and  no  longer  needful  of 
her  breasts. 

All  over  the  world,  all  across  history, 
the  finished  veterans  can  be  found — the 
deserted  mothers,  lonelying  for  their 
children  upon  their  laps  again.  But  An- 
thon  did  not  think  of  this  starry  multi 
tude;  he  thought  only  of  his  own  one; 
and  his  whole  soul  yearned  and  repented 
within  him. 

He  read  the  rest  of  the  letter  through 
a  mist.  It  was  full  of  little  gossips  and 
of  tender  inquiries  as  to  his  health, 
warnings  not  to  work  too  hard,  to  be 
conservative  in  the  matter  of  underwear 
and  to  take  good  care  of  his  precious 
self. 

And  throbbing  between  the  lines  was 
the  craving  for  a  word  of  greeting  or 
a  crumb  of  news  from  him  or  Kate  or 
any  of  her  children. 
120 


THE    OLD   NEST 

There  was  a  postscript,  of  course — 
written  in  the  space  she  had  left  blank 
at  the  top  of  the  first  page : 

I  wish  you  could  come  home  sometime.  Your 
father  and  I  would  be  awful  glad  to  see  you.  But, 
of  course,  you  're  so  busy  with  important  things. 
Anyway,  you  children  mustn't  worry  about  us; 
we  're  all  right. 

That  was  all — a  meek  little  sigh  of 
perennial  resignation,  and  no  more ;  but 
it  resounded  through  Anthon's  heart 
like  a  wail  of  despair.  He  loathed  him 
self  for  a  traitor  to  the  fundamental 
duties  of  life.  What  on  earth  was  im 
portant  compared  with  a  mother's  right 
to  keep  the  children  she  had  borne  and 
sheltered!  Or,  at  least,  to  see  them  now 
and  again? 


121 


WITH  a  sort  of  ferocity,  Anthon 
thrust  away  from  the  table,  left 
his  breakfast  unfinished  and  strode  to 
the  telephone,  called  up  his  sister  and 
vented  on  her  the  wrath  he  felt  for  him 
self. 

''That  you,  Kate?  Say!  When  did 
you  write  mother  last?" 

"I  don't  remember,  Tom.  It  was  a 
good  while  ago.  Why?" 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  your 
self." 

' '  I  am ;  but,  you  see,  the  children  have 
been  ill. ' ' 

"So  has  mother." 

"She  has?  Oh,  Tom,  that 's  terrible ! 
How  is  she  now  ? ' ' 

"She  's  better,  she  says;  but  you  can't 
122 


THE    OLD   NEST 

believe  her  at  all  when  she  writes  about 
her  own  ills." 

"I  know;  and  she  's  not  so  young  as 
she  used  to  be." 

"She  's  still  having  birthdays,  I  sup 
pose;  when  's  her  next  one?" 

' '  The — let  me  see ;  the  sixth,  I  think. ' ' 

"No!" 

"Yes,  that  's  it;  the  sixth.  When  is 
the  sixth?" 

"Day  before  yesterday!" 

"Oh,  good  heavens!  So  it  was. 
Is  n't  that  terrible?" 

"It  's  outrageous.  Too  late  even  to 
telegraph  her.  Say,  Kate,  why  don't 
you  run  out  and  visit  her?" 

"I  can't  leave  the  children.  Why 
don't  you  go,  Tom?" 

"I  'm  so  infernally  busy.  That  Py- 
croft  case  is  coming  up  any  day.  Why 
doesn't  Jim  ever  go  home?  He  lives 
out  that  way." 

123 


THE    OLD   NEST 

"Yes;  but  he  always  says  he  can't 
leave  his  patients.  And  his  wife 
does  n  't  get  along  very  well  with  her 
mother-in-law,  you  know." 

"I  won't  have  my  mother  called  a 
mother-in-law.  Besides,  Jim's  wife  is  a 
— well,  you  know  what  she  is." 

"I  know — I  never  could  understand 
Jim's  liking  her." 

"It  's  a  burning  shame,  Kate.  Here 
we  are,  a  big  family,  all  alive — none  of 
us  in  jail  or  the  poorhouse;  and  mother 
and  father  have  to  stick  out  there  alone, 
year  in  and  year  out." 

"What  can  we  do?  Dad  won't  leave 
his  patients.  Mother  won't  leave  him." 

"Well,  I  'm  going  to  reform.  As 
soon  as  I  get  this  Pycroft  suit  off  my 
hands  I  'm  going  out  there." 

"You  've  been  saying  that  for  ten 
years,  Tom." 

"I  mean  it  this  time." 
124 


THE    OLD    NEST 

"You  've  been  saying  that  for  ten 
years,  too." 

"Well,  can't  we  do  something  about 
her  birthday,  at  least?" 

"You  might  telegraph  her  we  just 
found  that  the  presents  hadn't  been 
sent." 

"That  's  a  good  idea." 

"  I  '11  blame  it  on-  Hold  the  wire  till 
I  close  the  door.  Hello!  I  started  to 
tell  you  a  good  scheme — I  '11  blame  it  on 
Martha.  I  '11  say  that  I  gave  her  the 
presents  to  express  and  she  forgot." 

"Fine!" 

"You  get  what  you  want  to  buy  for 
mother  and  send  it  up  here,  and  I  '11  see 
that  it  is  shipped  at  once." 

"Can't  you  buy  me  something  to 
send?  I  never  know  what  mother 
wants." 

"But,  Tom,  I  can't  get  downtown  in 
this  storm." 

125 


THE    OLD    NEST 

"You  've  got  to,  Kate.  Mother  's 
gone  through  worse  than  snow  for  you." 

"Well,  all  right.  How  much  shall  I 
spend  for  you?" 

"Oh,  whatever  is  right.  I  'm  rather 
hard  up  just  now." 

"That  's  another  thing  you  've  said 
for  the  past  ten  years." 

"I  know,  and  it  's  always  been  true. 
The  more  I  make,  the  less  I  have.  Well, 
get  whatever  strikes  you  as  the  right 
thing.  I  don't  care  what  it  costs.  In 
fact  you  might  splurge  a  little." 

"That  's  the  way  to  talk.  Why  don't 
you  come  round  to  see  me?" 

"I've  been  meaning  to,  Kate;  but 
I  Ve  been  so  frightfully — ' 

"Yes,  so  have  I.  Well,  good-by, 
Tom." 

"Good-by,  Kate." 


12B 


PART  III 
THE  LONELY  ONE 


THE  snow  had  grown  old  upon  the 
streets  and  yards  of  Carthage. 
There  was  no  uniformed  force  to  cart  it 
away.  People  dug  grooves  in  it  along 
their  own  walks  and  stumbled  or 
sleighed  through  the  rest  of  it. 

Now  a  new  snow  had  fallen  on  the  old, 
filling  up  the  grooves;  and  the  voice  of 
the  snow-shovel  was  loud  in  the  town. 
In  front  of  the  Anthon  home  Uncle  Ned 
was  working  with  caution  and  resting 
with  extravagance.  He  belonged  to  the 
black-and-white  sketch  the  landscape 
was.  He  was  growing  to  look  more  and 
more  like  an  old  grizzled  ape  with  that 
same  wistful  look  about  the  mouth.  In 
9  129 


THE    OLD    NEST 

winter  it  was  safe  to  say  that  Uncle  Ned 
was  wistful  for  a  live  coal. 

He  heard  the  front  door  open  and 
rather  divined  than  saw  Doctor  Anthon 
feeling  his  way  down  the  slippery  steps, 
like  a  bather  venturing  into  cold  water. 
With  a  mighty  flurry,  the  darky  com 
pleted  a  path  to  the  carriage  block, 
where  the  old  doctor's  old  white  horse 
stood  fetlock-deep  in  snow  and  would  no 
more  have  moved  from  his  allotted  post 
than  Casabianca. 

"Eight  smaht  o'  snow  this  mawnin', 
Doctah." 

"Yes,  it  is,  Uncle  Ned.  I  hope  you  '11 
get  the  path  cleared  before  the  next 
storm  comes." 

The  old  darky  whooped  with  laughter. 
He  was  so  notoriously  lazy  that  he  was 
proud  of  it.  Nothing  flattered  him  like 
an  allusion  to  his  unreliability. 

The  doctor  never  failed  to  have  his  lit- 
130 


THE    OLD   NEST 

tie  joke  on  the  subject.  Pleased  as  ever 
with  its  usual  reception,  he  set  his  medi 
cine  case  in  the  sleigh,  unwrapped  the 
lines  from  the  whipstock,  climbed  in 
with  elaborate  care,  fixed  the  laprobe 
about  him ;  then  pushed  on  the  lines  and 
remarked  "Click,  click!"  As  the  old 
white  horse  moved  off  at  a  fumble-footed 
jog,  the  doctor  leaned  back  to  wave  his 
hand  in  farewell  to  his  wife.  He  could 
not  see  so  far  as  her  window;  but  he 
knew  that  she  would  be  there  in  her 
rocking-chair.  And  she  waved  back  at 
him.  She  could  not  see  him  either ;  but, 
seeing  a  blurring  motion  and  hearing  a 
familiar  rumble,  she  knew  that  the 
sleigh  had  moved  off  and  that  he  must 
have  waved  to  her  as  he  had  done  in 
fallibly  for  close  on  fifty  years. 

He  was  chuckling  to  himself  as  con 
ceitedly  as  any  young  jackanapes.     On 
his  calendar  he  had  found  that  morning 
131 


THE    OLD   NEST 

a  memorandum  that  it  was  his  wife's 
birthday.  He  planned  to  surprise  her 
— nay,  to  amaze  her  by  remembering  it 
with  a  gift. 

Unfortunately  he  neglected  to  take  the 
memorandum  along;  and  his  genius  for 
forgetting  effaced  all  thought  of  it  from 
his  mind  before  the  sleigh  had  gone  two 
blocks. 

He  did  not  remember  it  again  for  five 
days,  when  his  wife  showed  him  the 
gorgeous  presents  from  the  New  York 
chapter  of  the  children. 

"See  what  Tom  and  Kate  have  sent 
me  for  my  birthday ! ' '  she  cried,  dancing 
like  a  child. 

A  mingling  of  guilt  and  jealousy 
moved  him  to  grumble  in  a  low  voice : 

"Pretty  late  sending  'em,  seems  to 
me." 

"Better  late  than  never,"  she  bridled, 
with  a  meaning  glare.  "And,  besides,  it 
132 


THE    OLD   NEST 

wasn't  their  fault.  See — Kate  says 
that  Martha — she  's  one  of  their  hired 
girls — was  given  the  package  to  express 
and  forgot  all  about  it." 

The  physician's  diagnosis  was  cyn 
ical:  "You  don't  believe  that,  do 
you?" 

"Well,  anyway,  it  was  nice  of  them  to 
take  the  trouble  to  think  it  up.  They  Ve 
got  enough  to  worry  them  without  try 
ing  to  keep  track  of  my  birthdays !  Lord 
knows1  they  Ve  been  common  enough." 

She  made  an  unheard-of  luxury  of  the 
remembrances  from  her  son  and  her 
daughter.  They  brightened  her  prison 
like  flowers  thrown  through  iron  bars. 

For  the  winter  was  a  siege  to  her. 
She  no  longer  dared  to  buffet  the  winds 
and  plod  the  drifts.  Day  in,  day  out, 
her  world  was  within  doors.  She  plied 
about  the  house,  but  always  brought  up 
in  the  harbor  of  the  old  rocking-chair. 
133 


THE    OLD   NEST 

Her  mind  did  not  stagnate,  but  she  read 
forever — read  good  books,  too.  She  had 
been  a  fountain  of  ambition  for  power 
and  learning  and  substantial  achieve 
ment,  but  these  had  found  their  outlet 
through  her  children.  Her  soul  was  like 
a  hidden  spring  whose  waters  are  piped 
to  far  cities. 

The  children  she  had  conceived  and 
carried  under  her  heart,  and  borne  to 
the  day,  and  nursed  over  her  heart, 
and  tended,  guarded,  consoled,  cajoled, 
taught,  punished,  rewarded,  adored  and 
served — the  children  for  whom  she  had 
done  everything,  from  the  most  menial 
task  to  the  most  inspired — had  left  her, 
one  by  one.  They  had  fled  from  the  old 
house  as  if  it  were  a  prison ;  and  if  they 
ever  felt  homesickness  they  exercised  a 
most  admirable  self-control. 

For  her  each  going  away  from  home 
had  been  another  travail,  another  sever- 
134 


THE    OLD    NEST 

ing  of  a  cord  fastened  to  her  own  veins. 
Some  of  her  children  were  themselves 
fathers  and  mothers;  but  none  the  less 
they  were  still  and  forever  flesh  of  her 
flesh,  heart  of  her  heart. 

She  ached  for  them  as  they  say  a 
shoulder  aches  for  its  amputated  arm, 
with  an  intolerable  incompleteness. 

She  thought  she  would  die  if  the  win 
ter  outside  did  not  end.  The  winter 
within  her  soul  she  knew  was  come  to 
stay,  but  two  winters  at  once  were  un 
endurable. 

And  then  spring  came,  with  its  ecstasy 
of  torment ;  and  her  anguish  was  bitterer 
yet.  She  would  have  had  the  winter 
back  again ;  for  spring  came  teasingly  in, 
like  a  pretty,  pouting  child  that  edges 
slowly  forward,  then  darts  away,  only  to 
sidle  a  little  closer — and  be  off  once 
more. 

At  last,  spring  was  everywhere — that 
135 


THE    OLD    NEST 

old  returning  flame,  that  old  refurbishing 
of  the  world  to  a  brand-new  unused 
beauty,  that  old  creation  miracle  all 
afresh;  but,  though  spring  could  return 
to  her  landscape,  she  could  not  go  out  to 
meet  it  half-way  or  answer  its  incanta 
tions.  She  could  just  play  spectator, 
dim-eyed  and  envious,  like  an  old  actress 
in  a  stage-box  seeing  her  best  roles 
played  by  an  upstart. 


136 


II 

IN  front  of  her  window  grew  a  tree — 
a  grave  and  reverend  tree.  All 
winter  it  had  been  a  stark  and  gloomy 
skeleton  of  bole  and  bough.  Suddenly 
one  morning  it  was  all  spotted  over 
with  little  buds.  From  these,  by  some 
sleight-of-hand,  the  wizard  Spring 
brought  forth  uncoiling  tendrils;  and 
they  flipped  out  the  most  ridiculous  toy 
leaves,  which  by-and-by,  as  it  were  sur 
reptitiously,  became  real  leaves.  And 
soon — almost  unbeknown — the  old  tree 
was  a  huge  green  cathedral,  with  intri 
cate  aisles  and  choirs  and  chapels,  where 
birds  held  service  from  matins  to  ves 
pers. 

Everywhere  else  was  the  same  magi- 
137 


THE    OLD    NEST 

clanship.  Ugly  heaps  of  dead  wire  were 
becoming  lilac  bushes.  The  shriveled 
husks  in  the  tulip  bed  were  stirring  with 
a  strange  yeast.  The  yellow  blotches 
left  by  the  retreating  snow  were  thatch 
ing  over  with  a  glistening  green. 

Everything  that  had  been  dry  and 
bald  and  sharp  was  growing  supple, 
clothed  upon  and  gracefully  flexile;  but 
no  renewing  luster  burnished  her  hair, 
no  suppleness  brought  youth  again  to 
her  members  or  made  dewy  violets  of 
her  eyes.  She  sat  by  the  window,  a  wit 
ness. 

Her  whole  being  wished  for  a  personal 
April  in  her  veins ;  her  heart  supplicated 
a  portion  of  the  universal  miracle.  She 
felt  bitter  that  the  Almighty  Power  lav 
ishing  such  infinite  youth  could  not  have 
sprinkled  her  with  a  few  drops  of  the 
benison ;  but  all  she  said  was : 

"Father,  I  guess  spring  is  here  for 
138 


THE    OLD   NEST 

sure.  The  yard  needs  cleaning  some 
thing  terrible." 

"So  it  does.  "We  must  set  Uncle  Ned 
to  work." 

She  superintended  the  enormous  task 
from  her  window,  opening  it  now  and 
then  to  call  out  some  suggestion. 

From  her  eyry  she  watched  the  calen 
dar  of  the  birds  unrolling  in  due  rota 
tion.  Surely  that  bluebird  leaping  into 
the  reopening  arena  was  the  same  azure 
herald  that  had  run  on  ahead  of  how 
many  pageants!  And  she  would  have 
sworn  that  she  remembered  that  prema 
ture  robin.  He  flaunted  the  same  rusty 
waistcoat  on  the  same  aldermanic 
paunch  and  drew  down  the  corners  of  his 
mouth  with  the  same  disgust  as  he  went 
prospecting  about  the  soggy,  unkempt 
lawn. 

Then  the  birds  came  pouring  in  as  if 
the  town  were  another  Oklahoma  opened 
139 


THE    OLD   NEST 

on  signal.  A  winged  horde  of  home 
steaders  swept  down  on  the  silent  trees 
and  eaves,  and  the  air  was  alive  with 
claim-staking,  claim-jumping,  mob  jus 
tice,  lynching,  race  war,  class  hatred— 
and  the  milder  activities  of  flirtation  and 
romance. 

The  old  tree  by  the  window  was  once 
more  chosen  by  a  young  couple.  They 
disdained  to  rent  the  ready-made  man 
sion  of  a  former  season  and  built  afresh 
on  another  bough,  taking  their  material 
where  they  found  it  and  climbing  up  and 
down  aerial  ladders  from  dawn  to  dusk. 
The  man  of  the  family  busied  himself 
chiefly  as  critic  and  supervisor.  His 
squaw  did  the  heavy  labor. 

By-and-by  the  loose  straws  of  the 
neighborhood  were  a  nest,  with  a  very 
solemn-looking  matron  almost  always  at 
home.  In  the  few  intervals  of  her  ab 
sence,  Mrs.  Anthon  could  see  a  cluster 
140 


THE    OLD   NEST 

of  round  shapes,  very  large  for  jewels, 
very  small  for  eggs. 

The  young  husband  won  her  respect 
by  his  fidelity  and  his  gallantry  in  bring 
ing  his  lady  her  meals.  This  seemed  to 
be  his  one  excuse  for  existence,  his  one 
industry — birds  not  having  yet  reached 
the  social  state  where  one  goes  to  a 
restaurant  or  telephones  and  orders  in 
his  meals  already  predigested. 

The  bride  in  this  Anthon  tree  ab 
sorbed  an  amazing  amount  of  provender 
and  consumed  appalling  quantities  of 
bird  spaghetti,  which  her  man  brought 
her  looped  up  in  his  beak  conveniently 
for  pushing  down  her  gullet.  Mean 
while  she,  too,  had  not  been  idle ;  for  she 
was  pretending  to  be  an  oven  and  she 
was  keeping  as  warm  as  she  could  for 
the  sake  of  the  hardshell  children  be 
neath  her.  She  could  not  give  them 
blood  or  milk  as  other  mothers  do;  she 
141 


THE    OLD    NEST 

could  only  be  a  furnace  to  them — while 
her  husband  was  her  most  ardent  stoker. 
The  consequence  of  this  mode  of  liv 
ing,  as  the  watcher  at  the  window  ex 
pected,  but  found  no  less  absorbing,  was 
the  eventual  presence  of  several  more 
gullets  to  stoke.  Now  the  paterfamilias 
was  busier  than  ever.  He  plainly  felt 
his  importance;  and  he  gracefully  con 
cealed  his  undoubted  disappointment  at 
the  grotesque  little  monstrosities  his 
wife  had  educed  from  those  exquisite 
jewels  he  had  bought  her.  As  for  the 
mother,  she  was  unspeakably  conceited, 
and  with  no  little  reason ;  for  had  she  not 
contributed  to  the  song  of  the  world  a 
number  of  additions,  and  demonstrated 
that  there  was  not  a  bad  egg  in  the  lot? 
And  she  doubtless  hoped — if  birds  are 
ever  foolish-wise  enough  to  hope ! — that 
they  would  turn  out  a  credit  to  the  fam- 

fly- 

142 


THE    OLD    NEST 

She  was  plainly  determined  that  while 
they  were  under  her  care  they  should  not 
lack  for  food,  warmth  or  protection. 
To  her  great  relief,  and  their  father's, 
they  grew  their  own  clothes;  but  their 
bringing-up  required  endless  attention, 
numberless  battles,  alarms,  quarrels. 
And  there  must  have  been  much  fatigue 
and  harrowing  anxiety. 

Mrs.  Anthon  could  not  but  see  the 
closeness  of  the  parallel  with  her  own 
case.  She,  too,  had  been  an  instrument 
for  the  continuance  of  her  species.  She, 
too,  had  been  urged  on  to  every  endur 
ance  and  sacrifice  by  some  inner  and 
outer  compulsion  of  instinct.  She,  too, 
had  been  amazed  and  enraptured  by  the 
marvelous  things  she  had  given  the 
world — little  animals  that  would  grow  to 
be  human  beings  like  herself  if  pro 
tected  and  fed. 

She  had  protected  and  fed  them;  and 
143 


THE    OLD    NEST 

now  they  were  of  full  stature,  well  and 
honorable  and  prospering.  She  re 
joiced  that  such  success  had  been 
granted  to  her  private  miracles.  Other 
women  had  seen  their  children  die  of 
malnutrition  or  illness  or  accident — run 
over  by  wagons  or  trains,  or  drowned. 
Other  women  had  seen  their  children 
taken  away  to  prisons.  None  of  these 
horrors  had  marred  her  brood.  She  felt 
that,  after  all,  she  had  been  blessed  be 
yond  her  deserts  and  she  rebuked  herself 
for  complaining  of  her  loneliness.  She 
bent  her  head  to  murmur  a  prayer  of 
gratitude. 

Her  prayer  was  cut  short  by  the  mad, 
clamorous  panic  of  all  the  birds  in  the 
neighborhood.  Birds  went  from  tree  to 
tree  as  if  hurled  from  slings.  They 
rocked  the  branches  with  their  own  ex 
citement.  Everywhere  birds  could  be 
144 


THE    OLD   NEST 

seen,  with  heads  up  and  beaks  scissoring 
as  they  barked  for  help. 

Mrs.  Anthon  leaned  out  to  find  the 
cause  of  the  excitement.  She  saw  her 
old  cat  prowling  up  the  tree,  lost  among 
the  leafy  branches,  and  searching — 
searching.  Fate  had  tried  to  conceal 
him  by  naming  him  Tom  and  he  had 
grown  almost  too  lazy  to  purr;  but 
spring  had  quickened  the  pulse  of  the  old 
fireside  loafer  until  he  thought  he  was  a 
tiger  in  a  jungle.  Such  attitudinizing, 
such  voluptuous  sense  of  power,  such 
melodramatic  villainy !  He  was  so  fero 
cious  that  he  frightened  himself  and 
kept  looking  back  to  see  if  his  other  self 
were  not  about  to  spring  on  him.  He 
stalked  the  twisted  streets  of  that  tree  as 
if  he  were  a  man-eater  raiding  a  village 
in  Bengal.  He  was  not  very  much 
afraid  of  the  birds  whetting  their  beaks 
10  145 


THE    OLD    NEST 

on  the  branches  and  shooting  themselves 
in  his  direction.  And  then  he  heard  the 
sharp,  shrill  tones  of  his  mistress  in 
most  unusual  wrath: 

"Tom!  Come  out  of  there!  What 
do  you  mean  by —  Tom!  you  Thomas! 
Come  right  to  me.  You  come  away 
from  there  this  instant!" 

He  wavered  mutinously.  He  felt  two 
natures  struggling  within  him.  All  the 
ravening  pride  of  the  genus  felis  wres 
tled  with  the  effete  acquirements  of  the 
house  cat.  Habit  won,  as  usual.  The 
disguised  tiger  reverted  to  old  Tom  and 
slid  clutchingly  down  the  tree.  Too  bit 
terly  cowed  even  to  strike  back  at  the 
emboldened  fowl  whizzing  like  shrapnel 
about  his  lowered  head,  he  slunk  through 
a  cellar  window  and  hid  his  blushes  in 
the  coalhole,  meditating  on  the  evils  of 
these  degenerate  times. 

The  birds,  ignoring  the  superavian 
146 


THE    OLD    NEST 

power  that  had  intervened  miraculously, 
congratulated  themselves  upon  a  bril 
liant  victory  and  returned  to  the  works 
of  peace.  They  said  no  prayers  of 
thanks;  they  made  no  sacrifices,  set  up 
no  votive  tablets,  established  no  holiday. 
If  they  drew  any  lesson  from  the  cam 
paign  at  all  it  was  that  cats  would 
weaken  if  yelled  at  loudly  and  charged 
at  with  enough  appearance  of  sincerity. 

It  never  occurred  to  them  to  resolve 
that,  since  the  prospect  of  a  cat  eating 
their  young  had  so  wrung  their  hearts, 
they  would  never  eat  anybody's  else 
young.  They  did  not  become  vegeta 
rians,  rather  than  harrow  up  the  souls 
of  sensitive  grasshoppers,  and  hysterical 
earthworms.  They  ate  all  of  them  they 
could  find,  or  kidnapped  them  to  feed 
their  young  withal. 

No  more  did  Mrs.  Anthon  moralize  on 
the  event.  She  did  not  care  for  insect 
147 


THE    OLD   NEST 

melody  and  she  did  not  know  that  earth 
worms  have  a  dual  nature  and  are  dou 
bly  amorous.  She  simply  rejoiced  with 
the  gladness  humans  feel  when  they  have 
rescued  a  songbird  from  the  great  si 
lence;  and  she  resolved  to  make  sure 
that  Tom  Beelzebub  was  locked  up  in 
doors  till  the  tenants  of  that  nest  had 
raised  their  babies  to  full  birdhood. 
She  would  be  their  police. 

It  had  seemed  as  if  all  the  birds  in  the 
world  had  chosen  Carthage  for  this 
year's  estivation.  But  there  were  birds 
enough  to  fit  out  many  another  Northern 
spring  and  in  a  certain  garden  in  the 
outer  rim  of  Paris  there  was  also  a  tree 
also  with  a  bird  honeymoon  in  it. 

Near  a  window  overlooking  that  gar 
den  a  far-flown  young  American  wife 
sat  day  after  day  and  dreamed  of 
Carthaginian  springs  and  of  future 
springs.  She  watched  her  birds  with  a 
148 


THE    OLD   NEST 

strange  sense  of  kinship,  a  sympathetic 
anxiety  from  her  own  nest.  Emily  did 
not  gad  about  Paris  these  days.  She 
never  went  out  at  all,  but  just  waited  for 
her  wonderful  Stephen  to  come  home 
and  for  the  coming  home  of  a  more  won 
derful  Stephen  Second — she  hoped  it 
would  be  another  Stephen,  though  he 
wanted — or  said  he  wanted,  a  Junior 
Emilums. 

She  meant  to  write  to  her  mother  and 
tell  her  the  great  and  unheard-of  mira 
cle-to-be;  but  she  had  a  greater  genius 
for  postponing  tasks  now  than  ever. 
And  she  decided  to  save  the  news  for  a 
glorious  cablegram. 

For  once  Emily's  neglect  was  unwit 
tingly  kind,  and  her  mother's  loneliness 
was  not  shot  through  with  the  terror  she 
would  have  felt,  knowing  that  her  little 
girl  was  marching  into  the  valley  of  the 
greater  agony,  and  among  strangers  on 
149 


T.HE    OLD    NEST 

the  other  side  of  the  world.  That 
knowledge  might  have  shod  her  old  feet 
with  resolution  for  the  long  journey  she 
had  counted  impossible. 


150 


Ill 

THE  Chicago  papers  reach  Carthage 
in  the  late  forenoon  and  the  in 
habitants  depend  upon  them  as  their 
telescopes  to  the  great  outer  universe. 
Doctor  Anthon  read  the  Carthage  morn 
ing  sheet  to  find  out  who  was  on  "the 
sick  list"  or  what  the  town  council  had 
decided  about  repairing  the  crossings 
on  Main  Street.  Mrs.  Anthon  read  it  to 
see  who  was  at  whose  party  last  night. 
She  rarely  glanced  at  the  metropolitan 
journals. 

That  noon,  as  she  was  retailing  to  her 
husband  the  exciting  Waterloo  of  the 
birds  and  Napoleon  Tom,  he  listened 
with  only  half  an  ear,  his  attention 
riveted  rather  on  the  news  from  the 
151 


THE    OLD    NEST 

larger  world.    He  turned  a  page  surrep 
titiously  and  gasped : 

"Land  of  Goshen!  Here  's  our  boy's 
picture ! ' ' 

"No!" 

"Yes!" 

"What  has  he  done  now?" 

For  a  moment  the  mother's  heart  was 
clutched  with  an  anguish  lest  some  great 
misfortune  had  fastened  on  her  child. 
She  stared  at  the  portrait,  leaning  hard 
on  her  husband's  shoulder.  Darby  and 
Joan  would  hardly  have  known  this  ma 
ture  gentleman  for  their  child  if  the 
portrait  had  not  been  labeled. 

With  trembling  forefinger  the  father 
ran  among  the  headlines  searching  for 
what  shocking  scandal  might  have  in 
volved  their  pride.  His  name  was  not 
among  them  as  a  distinguished  mur 
derer,  embezzler  or  divorce.  At  last 
they  ran  him  down. 
152 


THE    OLD    NEST 

"Here  it  is:  'President  Appoints 
New  Yorker  to  Vacancy  on  Supreme 
Bench.'  With  quivering  lips  and  a 
heart  that  beat  as  if  he  had  run  hard  and 
long,  the  father  read  how  this  ultimate 
laurel  for  an  American  lawyer  had  been 
laid  upon  the  brow  of  the  eminent  mem 
ber  of  the  bar  known  among  his  friends 
and  rivals  as  "Lucky  Anthon." 

The  parents  of  all  this  grandeur  sat 
back  and  stared  at  each  other.  Their 
first  emotion  was  a  thrill  of  joy  at  the 
joy  this  would  mean  to  their  child  him 
self. 

"He  always  said,  you  know,"  the 
mother  laughed — "he  always  said  that 
for  a  lawyer  the  supreme  bench  was 
what  the  college  of  cardinals  is  to  a 
priest.  And  now  he  's  there!" 

"And  he  's  my  son!"  the  old  doctor 
cried. 

"Your  son!"  the  mother  stormed, 
153 


THE    OLD    NEST 

with  an  almost  scandalous  implication. 
''He  's  all  mine!  You  wanted  him  to  be 
a  doctor.  I  made  you  send  him  to  the 
law  school. ' ' 

"Well,  I  paid  his  expenses  anyway," 
the  doctor  grumbled,  retreating  to  the 
usual  meekness  of  an  American  hus 
band. 

"Yes,  but  he  's  his  mother's  own 
boy!"  she  repeated  with  eyes  flashing 
like  an  exultant  girl's. 

Their  rapture  was  interrupted  by  the 
telephone.  A  neighbor  who  took  the 
same  Chicago  paper,  was  howling  con 
gratulations  and  basking  in  the  radiance. 
The  mother  repeated  the  conversation 
as  soon  as  she  could  release  herself 
from  the  telephone : 

"It  's  just  like  her.     She  took  most  of 

the  credit  to  herself:     'I  always  said  he 

would  be  a  great  man  some  day,'  she 

said;  'and  it  shows  what  Carthage  can 

154 


THE    OLD    NEST 

do  when  she  tries.'  As  if  this  old  town 
had  anything  to  do  with  it.  The  glory 
belongs  entirely  to  the  boy  himself." 

"And  to  his  mother,"  the  husband 
added,  as  if  he  laid  a  posy  at  her  feet. 

The  telephone  rang  again;  and  the 
doctor  saw  a  sudden  flush  overrun  his 
wife's  cheek  as  she  answered  some  un 
expected  question  guiltily. 

' '  Why  did  n  't  we  tell  you  ?  Er— why, 
you  see — er — of  course,  we  knew  it  long 
ago;  but — er — those  things — are  so  con 
fidential — the  President  didn't  want 
anybody  to — he  wanted  to  announce  it 
first  himself — the  President  did." 

She  sank  into  her  chair  in  confusion. 
"What  do  you  suppose  she  had  the  im 
pudence  to  insinuate? — that  we  didn't 
know  about  it  ourselves  until  we  saw  it 
in  the  paper !  The  idea ! ' ' 

"Well,  of  course,"  the  doctor  mum 
bled,  bashful  before  the  truth— "of 
155 


THE    OLD   NEST 

course,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  didn't." 
"Well,  what  of  it  I" 

Perhaps,  in  view  of  the  small  share  he 
had  been  allotted  in  the  son's  soul,  the 
father  felt  justified  in  venturing  a  criti 
cism: 

"He  might  have  telegraphed." 

The  mother  rounded  on  him  like  a 
leopardess  whose  cub  has  been  threat 
ened: 

"Don't  you  suppose  that  a  Supreme 
Justice  of  the  United  States  has  more 
important  things  to  think  of  than  send 
ing  telegrams  to  a  couple  of  old  fogies 
like  us?" 

"It  doesn't  matter  about  me — I  have 
no  feelings  to  hurt;  but  he  might  have 
thought  of  his  mother. ' ' 

"He  does  think  of  her.  Didn't  he 
send  me  a  perfectly  beautiful  birthday 
present?" 

"Five  days  late." 
156 


THE    OLD   NEST 

They  spatted  like  a  pair  of  sulky  chil 
dren;  and  the  mother  of  an  associate 
justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  swept  out  of  the  room  with  a  su 
preme  contempt  for  the  mere  village 
physician  who  dared  to  criticize  her 
master  work. 

Once  upstairs,  however,  in  the  old 
rocker,  which  squealed  so  lonely  a  tune 
and  had  seen  so  many  lonely  hours,  the 
truth  of  the  neglect  came  down  on  her 
like  a  bludgeon.  She  did  not  blame  her 
boy — her  heart  always  issued  him  ple 
nary  indulgences  in  advance;  but  she 
blamed  the  mechanism  of  a  world  where 
the  mother  must  endure  the  bitterest 
pains  and  dangers  of  her  children,  in 
order  that  they  may  find  their  raptures 
and  their  triumphs  elsewhere.  The 
thorns  for  her — for  others  the  roses. 

Her  sad  eyes  roved  from  the  new  nest 
of  the  new  family  to  the  deserted  hut 
157 


THE    OLD   NEST 

of  last  year's  birds.  Like  a  warning 
legend,  a  signboard,  a  symbol,  it  hung 
within  full  view  of  the  fresher  habitation 
— and  no  bird  heeded  it. 

Yet  just  one  bird-generation  ago  it 
was  builded  with  equal  frenzy  by  a  like 
young  couple;  it  was  the  cradle  of 
a  brood  of  fledglings,  too,  watched 
through  a  precarious  childhood  to  the 
time  of  flight  by  a  mother  and  father 
equally  fond  and  fanatic. 

From  this  same  window  how  many 
hours  she  had  watched  over  the  destinies 
of  that  little  family!  How  well  she  re 
membered  that  big  day  when  the  first 
of  the  sprawling  youngsters  had  gripped 
the  sill  of  the  nest  with  anxious  fingers 
and  looked  forth  longingly  upon  the 
world;  had  teetered  there  and  slumped 
back,  afraid  to  adventure;  had  stag 
gered  again  to  the  great  jumping-off 
place  and  regarded  the  perilous  sea  of 
158 


THE    OLD    NEST 

air  with  terror,  yet  with  desire — and 
finally,  with  a  now-or-never,  do-or-die 
gulp,  had  stepped  off  into  space.  Some 
how  instinct  and  air  pressure  and  long 
grass  had  broken  its  fall,  and  the  awk 
ward  aviator  arrived  on  earth  without 
disaster. 

What  a  cataclysm  it  had  been  to  that 
father  and  mother  and  the  sympathetic 
neighbors !  What  mad  shrieks  and 
chatters  of  advice  and  dashes  to  the 
rescue — what  appeals  and  wailings  and 
warnings!  How  that  bird  mother  and 
father  must  have  longed  for  hands  and 
arms  to  lift  their  prodigal  with ! 

Mrs.  Anthon  had  watched  the  desper 
ate  lunges  and  tumbles  of  the  homesick 
flyaway.  She  had  gone  out  in  the  yard 
to  help;  but  the  chick  was  afraid  of  her 
and  the  parents  menaced  her  very  eyes 
with  their  beaks.  To  escape  her,  the  lit 
tle  bird  had  managed  even  to  hoist  him- 
159 


THE    OLD    NEST 

self  up  to  a  sapling  and  from  that  to 
swoop  to  another.  And  then  she  lost 
him — and  never  saw  him  again. 

The  parents  continued  to  feed  the  re 
mainder  of  the  flock,  but  another  day 
saw  their  second  child  depart.  In  the 
lonely  nest  there  remained  one  only  in 
fant.  Its  parents'  ministrations  plainly 
did  not  suffice.  It  was  more  conserva 
tive  and  waited  for  abundant  strength. 
For  two  days  it  waved  its  wings  up  and 
down  as  if  training  for  a  great  event, 
and  then  it  sailed  away.  The  nest  was 
empty — empty  forever  after.  The  par 
ents  sailed  away,  too.  It  was  only  hu 
mans  that  hung  about  a  deserted  nest ! 

That  was  a  year  ago,  just  about  the 
time  her  own  last  fledgling,  Emily,  had 
gazed  into  the  world  too  deep  and 
too  long  and — flitted  with  unreturning 
wings.  And  here,  just  a  few  boughs  be 
yond  the  ruins  of  a  once  busy  home, 
160 


THE    OLD    NEST 

this  other  home  was  full  of  life  and  de 
votion,  of  parental  care  and  filial  trust. 

Mrs.  Anthon  shook  her  head  over  the 
impending  desolation  of  this  little  Troy. 
She  thrust  up  the  window-sash,  leaned 
out  on  the  ledge  and  mused  upon  the  fu 
ture — knew  how  it  would  mimic  the  past. 
Her  heart  called  out  to  the  mother  bird, 
though  her  lips  hardly  moved : 

"Don't  love  your  children  too  much, 
little  bird.  They  '11  fly  away.  They  '11 
leave  you.  They  're  only  waiting  till 
their  wings  are  strong  enough.  That  's 
all  they  're  waiting  for.  That  's  all 
you  're  feeding  them  for.  They  '11  leave 
you;  they  will.  The  day  is  coming. 
Your  children  will  leave  you  as  mine 
left  me.  Poor  little  mother,  you  've 
kept  them  all  warm  and  dry,  and  kept 
the  rain  and  the  wind  from  them— 
and  fed  them  so  lovingly !  You  'd  give 
your  life  for  them ;  but  they  '11  fly  away. 
11  161 


THE    OLD   NEST 

Don't  love  them  too  much — they  '11 
fly  off.  They  '11  never  come  home. 
They  '11  forget  the  way  back.  They  '11 
forget  you.  Poor  little  mother,  you  '11 
lose  them  soon.  They  '11  all  fly  away — 
all — all  fly  away!" 


162 


IV 

THE  whole  afternoon  the  mother 
nursed  her  lonely  grief  by  the  win 
dow.  Her  husband  had  his  patients,  his 
errands  of  importance,  helping  children 
into  the  world  and  keeping  olders  from 
slipping  out  of  it.  He  was  a  man  sent 
for,  begged  for,  needed.  His  work  was 
unending. 

She  had  been  a  fruitful  mother  while 
she  could,  and  now  she  was  without 
career  or  ambition.  She  looked  out 
across  that  part  of  the  town  she  could 
see  from  her  window.  Every  roof  was 
bereaved  of  children.  Other  towns  got 
them — called  away  the  bravest  and  the 
most  ambitious.  Other  mothers  were  in 
her  plight. 

163 


THE    OLD   NEST 

She  could  not  blame  her  children  for 
leaving.  She  had  left  her  own  home  and 
her  own  home  town  when  her  husband 
left  his.  She  had  deserted  her  parents. 
They  had  deserted  theirs — and  they 
theirs — on  back  into  the  days  when  the 
nation  was  a  wilderness,  beyond  the 
ocean  into  foreign  countries,  where  for 
ever  backward  the  procession  could  be 
traced — children  always  leaving  home, 
leaving  home,  leaving  home.  That  was 
human  history;  and  that  eternal  serial 
of  heartache  and  farewell  was  the  slow 
spelling  of  the  word  " progress"  across 
the  map  of  the  world. 

The  word  "progress"  was  poor  con 
solation  to  the  victims  of  it.  Mrs.  An- 
thon  took  no  comfort  in  giving  her  own 
heart  as  one  more  red  brick  in  the  end 
less  pavement  men  march  on  to  unend 
ing  ambition. 

164 


THE    OLD   NEST 

History  meant  nothing  real  to  her. 
This  new  accession  to  the  supreme  court 
of  the  supreme  republic  meant  nothing 
to  her.  His  views  on  constitutional  in 
terpretations  meant  nothing  to  her. 
She  could  not  have  understood  one  of 
her  own  child's  briefs  or  decisions.  All 
she  felt  was  that  her  boy  was  far 
away — farther  away  than  ever  now; 
that  she  meant  nothing  to  him;  she  was 
not  worth  a  telegram  in  the  hour  of  his 
glory.  He  had  forgotten  that  without 
her  he  would  never  have  been  at  all; 
without  her  he  would  have  died  a  thou 
sand  times.  She  did  not  blame  him ;  she 
blamed  herself,  because  somehow  she 
had  failed  to  be  important  to  him  al 
ways. 

The  shame  was  so  bitter  that  she 
would  not  reveal  it  to  her  own  husband, 
much  less  to  the  neighbors.  She  lied 
165 


THE    OLD   NEST 

glibly  and  nobly  to  all  who  asked  her  if 
she  had  heard  the  news  from  her  son 
himself. 

The  ordeal  was  too  much.  A  fever  in 
vaded  her  veins,  her  forehead  burned, 
her  heart  fluttered  like  a  bird  in  a  cat's 
clutch.  If  she  could  have  cried  it  would 
have  helped  her.  Tears  would  have 
blessed  her  parched  eyes  like  a  shower 
upon  a  desert;  but  the  tears  would  not 
come. 

Her  husband  sent  her  to  bed,  got 
medicines  for  her,  wanted  to  sit  up  with 
her.  She  would  have  none  of  his  medi 
cines  or  of  him.  His  father  heart  was 
hurt  nearly  as  deeply  as  hers ;  but,  man 
like,  he  was  all  for  rebuking  their  neg 
lectful  son.  She  drove  him  to  his  own 
room  and  lay  supine  and  unimaginably 
useless.  She  felt  as  useless  and  cast 
away  as  an  old  broomhandle  in  the 
world's  back  yard. 

166 


THE    OLD   NEST 

It  was  late  when  sleep  arrived  upon 
her  hot  eyelids — but  it  was  a  false  sleep, 
a  usurper,  full  of  nightmares  and  all  too 
vivid  torments,  whence  she  struggled  to 
waken — and  woke  only  to  wish  herself 
asleep  again. 

Deep  in  the  abysm  of  the  night,  true 
slumber  fell  about  her  and  her  griefs 
were  erased  from  her  benumbed  soul. 
After  a  time,  when  she  was  a  little 
rested,  dreams  began  to  throng  about 
her  once  more;  but  they  were  beautiful 
dreams. 

She  was  a  young  mother  again,  mend 
ing  things  for  little  children  to  wear 
through  again.  The  old  dead  nest  of  a 
house  was  repeopled  with  her  young. 
They  laughed,  sang,  hooted,  quarreled, 
fought,  shrieked,  banged  the  piano, 
broke  the  needle  in  the  sewing  machine, 
fell  down  and  wailed,  got  up  and  giggled. 

Wherever  she  moved,  they  clung  to 
167 


THE    OLD   NEST 

her  skirts,  sprawled  in  her  way,  de 
manded  her  services,  fought  for  her  lap, 
battled  over  who  loved  her  best.  The 
silent  house  was  fairly  shaken  with  the 
chaos  of  voices.  "I  'm  hungry!  Can't 
I  have  a  piece  of  bread  and  jam?  How 
do  you  spell  —  "What  's  the  pro- 

nounsation  of How  many  times 

does  seventy-six  go  into  fifty-eight? 
Mama,  make  Frank  let  go  of  my  hair! 
Mama,  Emily  took  my  chewing-gum! 
Mama,  he  hit  me !  Kate  hit  me  first !  I 
did  not !  You  did  so !  Mama,  can  I  go 
skating,  swimming,  to  the  circus,  to  the 
strawberry  festival,  sleigh-riding,  ball 
game,  picnic — " 

Among  the  children  was  one  who  bore 
the  least  possible  resemblance  to  a  jus 
tice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  She  missed 
him  suddenly  from  the  riot.  She  won 
dered  where  he  was.  She  heard  a  wild 
outcry.  It  was  his  voice.  He  was  in 
168 


THE    OLD   NEST 

danger.  She  ran,  eager  to  give  her  life 
to  save  him  from  any  harm ;  and,  as  she 
ran,  she  cried: 

"Yes,  honey!  I'm  coming!  Don't 
be  afraid!" 

Abruptly  she  was  awal^e.  Her  eyes 
saw  nothing  but  blackness  all  about. 
Her  shivering  fingers  found  the  bed. 
She  made  out  a  little  night-light  breath 
ing  fitfully  behind  the  cover  of  the  sew 
ing  machine.  The  window-casements 
were  filled  with  the  ink  of  utter  gloom. 

She  realized  that  once  more  the  whis 
tle  of  the  four-o'clock  express  had 
pierced  her  sleep,  shuttled  into  and  in 
terwoven  with  her  dream. 

Her  children  were  vanished  from  her. 
Her  little  Tower  of  Babel  was  cursed 
with  annihilation.  She  was  only  an  old 
woman,  alone ;  and  that  mute  black  hour 
before  dawn  loomed  between  her  and  the 
light. 

169 


SHE  fell  back  shivering  upon  her  pil 
low,  her  lean  fingers  twitching  at 
the  covers  and  her  heart  abandoned  to 
abject  desolation.  Neither  sleep  nor 
tears  brought  mercy  to  her  staring  eyes ; 
she  was  the  shattered  victim  of  the  Jug 
gernaut  of  Time. 

She  said  to  herself,  with  acrid  irony: 
"I  am  the  mother  of  a  supreme  justice; 
and  this  is  the  justice  of  the  world.  My 
crime  is  that  I  was  a  mother ;  my  punish 
ment  is  exile  on  this  desert  island  in  this 
lonely  sea ! ' ' 

There  was  a  faint  murmur,  hardly 
more  than  a  shuffling  of  the  silence.  It 
grew  less  remote,  less  vague.  It  became 
170 


THE    OLD    NEST 

a  rumble  of  wheels,  a  thudding  of 
horse's  hoofs. 

"The  milkman  is  early  this  morning," 
she  thought.  The  rumble  was  a  clatter. 
It  turned  into  the  street  before  her 
house.  A  man  cried:  "Whoa!"  The 
noise  stopped.  A  carriage  door  opened. 
Footsteps  quickened  along  the  walk, 
stamped  up  the  steps.  The  doorbell 
was  pulled;  the  still  house  rang  with 
alarm. 

"Somebody  for  the  doctor,"  she 
thought.  "Too  bad  they  can't  let  him 
sleep." 

After  an  age  of  delay  she  heard  him 
strike  a  match  in  his  room,  saw  a  sliver 
of  light  under  her  door,  heard  him 
hastily  slipping  into  his  clothes,  lighting 
the  gas  in  the  hall,  stumbling  drowsily 
down  the  steps,  unlocking  the  door. 

She  heard  his  voice  and  another 
man's.  There  seemed  to  be  some  excite- 
171 


THE    OLD   NEST 

ment.  Probably  some  young  father 
begging  her  husband  to  come  at  once. 
The  voices  were  hurrying  up  the  stairs. 
That  was  strange!  There  was  a  knock 
at  her  door. 

''"What  is  it?"  she  called. 

''Open  the  door!"  her  husband  de 
manded. 

"What  's  the  matter?"  she  gasped  as 
she  pushed  her  feet  into  her  slippers  and 
her  arms  into  a  wrapper. 

"Open  the  door!" 

She  groped  through  the  dark  and 
turned  the  key ;  flung  open  the  door  anx 
iously.  A  tall  stranger  rushed  at  her, 
caught  her  in  his  arms  and  cried : 

"Mother!    Mother!" 

Lips  covered  her  cheeks  with  kisses 
and,  finding  her  lips,  smothered  her 
questions.  Before  she  could  speak,  she 
knew  that  this  strange,  violent  person 
was  one  of  the  associate  justices  of  the 
172 


THE    OLD   NEST 

Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
He  told  her  so  himself  and  added : 

"As  soon  as  I  knew  it  for  sure,  I 
jumped  on  the  first  train  to  bring  you 
the  news  myself.  I  hope  you  haven't 
heard  it.  Have  you?" 

For  all  her  panic  of  joy,  she  remem 
bered  to  be  this  overgrown  child's 
mother,  and  to  say  what  he  so  wanted  to 
hear:  "No.  I  never  dreamed  of  it.  I 
can't  believe  it!" 

And  her  frowsy  husband,  grinning 
like  an  overgrown  lout,  for  once  had  tact 
enough  to  perjure  himself  like  a  gentle 
man,  and  gasp : 

* '  Supreme  Court !  Associate  Justice ! 
The  President  appointed  you!  Mother, 
did  you  hear  that ! ' ' 

Nothing  would  do  but  that  the  prodi 
gal  magistrate  should  light  the  gas  in 
his  mother's  room  and  make  her  crawl 
under  cover.  Then  he  stuffed  the  pil- 
173 


THE    OLD    NEST 

lows  about  her,  and  sat  on  the  edge  of 
the  bed  and  told  her  the  whole  story, 
more  or  less  as  she  had  read  it. 

"I  was  so  afraid  I  would  n't  succeed," 
he  explained,  returning  to  childhood 
again  in  the  presence  of  his  forebears. 
"I  didn't  dare  write  you  about  it. 
Then,  when  the  news  came  from  the 
President  himself,  I  started  to  telegraph 
you.  I  wrote  a  dozen  telegrams  and 
tore  them  all  up.  Finally  I  said: 
'  Good  Lord !  this  is  something  I  've  got 
to  tell  her  myself!'  I  was  pretty  tired 
anyway;  so  I  just  threw  a  few  things 
into  a  trunk,  hopped  into  a  taxicab  and 
barely  caught  the  train.  I  've  been  gig 
gling  like  a  baby  all  the  way.  The  por 
ter  thought  I  was  crazy.  But  I  wanted 
to  surprise  you;  and  I  did — didn't  I? 
-did n't  I,  Mother?" 

She  only  squeezed  his  hand  in  both  of 
hers  for  reply  and  one  or  two  tears  came 
174 


THE    OLD   NEST 

out  to  see  what  was  going  on.  They 
shone  like  smiles  in  her  adoring  eyes. 
He  ran  on  boyishly: 

"It 's  a  shame  to  wake  you  up  at  this 
hour,  but  I  couldn't  wait  for  a  later 
train.  I  've  come  to  stay  for  a  week  or 
two  and  just  visit  with  you.  And  then 
I  'm  going  to  bundle  you  and  dad  up  and 
take  you  to  Washington  for  the  big  re 
ception  the  President  is  going  to  give 
me.  I  told  him  all  about  you  when  we 
were  talking  over  the  appointment.  I 
told  him  that  you  were  the  most  wonder 
ful  mother  in  the  world  and  you  had  al 
ways  said  I  'd  get  to  the  supreme  bench 
some  day;  and  he  said:  'We  '11  have  to 
see  if  we  can't  make  her  a  prophetess. 
You  're  lucky  to  have  her  alive ! ' 
That  's  what  he  said.  You  '11  come— 
won't  you?  You  've  got  to!  You  will 
— won't  you?" 

She  stared  at  him  as  if  he  were  a  mi- 
175 


THE    OLD   NEST 

rage.  She  clung  to  him  as  if  he  were 
salvation.  Her  eyes  were  drenched  but 
her  lips  were  happy.  Yet  all  she  said 
was: 

"Oh,  my  blessed  little  boy,  I  could 
never  go  so  far." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  could,"  he  insisted. 
"And  I  'm  going  to  get  all  the  children 
there  for  a  family  reunion.  Anybody 
that  does  n't  give  bonds  to  come  will  be 
sent  for  by  a  United  States  marshal. 
They  '11  all  be  there,  I  promise  you  that. 
I'll  extradite  that  scamp  Emily  for  you. 
And  when  I  'm  on  the  Supreme  Bench, 
I  'm  going  to  treat  any  child  who  does 
not  repay  his  mother's  love  in  full  and 
with  compound  interest  as  a  defaulter 
of  the  first  degree,  and  a  home-wrecker 
of  the  worst  sort.  And  I  'm  going  to 
sentence  myself  first.  You  glorious, 
beautiful  mother,  you  '11  promise  to  be 
there,  won't  you?  You've  got  to! 
176 


THE    OLD   NEST 

Hasn't  she,  Dad?  Isn't  she  beautiful! 
My  mother ! ' ' 

For  answer,  she  simply  clutched  his 
hand  and  shook  it  with  a  strange  fierce 
ness  ;  and  she  shook  all  over,  all  through, 
until  the  tears  were  flung  from  her  eye 
lids  to  his  cheek.  More  tears  took  their 
place.  They  came  gushing  and  flood 
ing;  and  she  bent  to  her  son's  broad 
shoulder  and  sobbed. 

Her  tears  were  not  the  only  ones  shed ; 
but  they  seemed  to  make  the  room  glad 
and  to  sweeten  the  air  like  a  May  rain 
scattering  its  largess  on  a  drooping  rose- 
tree. 

That  is  all.  This  has  not  been  much 
of  a  story  to  read — not  much  plot,  not 
much  adventure;  and  yet,  if  you  who 
read  it  should  be  moved  to  remember 
piously  your  mother — if  she  is  dead ;  or 

if  she  lives,  if  you  were  impelled  to  sit 
12  177 


THE    OLD   NEST 

down  and  write  her  a  letter  or  send  her 
a  long  telegram  saying,  "I  am  well,  I 
am  thinking  of  you  and  I  want  you  to 
know  how  much  I  love  you!"  or,  above 
all,  if  you  should  be  persuaded  to  go 
home  and  see  her — why,  then,  this  story 
would  have  given  more  real  joy  than 
perhaps  any  other  story  ever  written. 


THE    END 


178 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000118018 


